Tajikistan Budget Openness Improves, but Public Participation and Mining Disclosures Lag

Tajikistan's score for public access to central-government budget information rose from 33 out of 100 in the 2023 Open Budget Survey to 47 in the 2025 edition, but two independently produced transparency assessments point to continuing gaps in how citizens can examine public finances and natural-resource revenues.

The International Budget Partnership (IBP), which runs the Open Budget Survey, gives Tajikistan 17 out of 100 for public participation and 52 for budget oversight. Its threshold for sufficiently detailed public budget information is 61, so the improvement in the headline transparency score does not mean that budget disclosure meets that benchmark.

The detailed IBP country assessment identifies concrete progress: a mid-year budget review was published online, and the executive budget proposal and pre-budget statement contained more information. It also identifies a reversal: the executive proposal no longer broke down expenditure by economic classification. In the documents assessed, the year-end report was marked 'Not Produced' for the relevant fiscal year, and the audit report received a content score of 38. These are findings about the survey's historical assessment window, not proof that a report is still missing in November 2026.

A separate assessment by the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) awarded Tajikistan 55 points in June 2025 for implementation of its disclosure standard. EITI recognised improvements in reporting and a preliminary beneficial-ownership portal, while identifying shortcomings in licensing information, access to data and disclosure about precious metals. The EITI rating and IBP's budget-transparency score measure different systems; they should not be added together or presented as competing estimates of the same indicator.

The overlap is a reporting question rather than a finding of corruption: how much can the public independently check about state income, public assets, mining licences and the use of revenues? Both assessments identify information gaps, but neither establishes that specific money was diverted or that a named official committed an offence.

In a Russian-language interview published by Asia-Plus on 3 November 2026, budget expert Uktam Dzhumaev argued that improved publication of budget documents must be matched by clearer disclosure of public-property income, transfers to local governments and the results of audits. He said the Finance Ministry had set a target of exceeding 50 on the budget transparency measure; that target is his account of the ministry's position, not an independently obtained ministry announcement. Dzhumaev is also identified by IBP as the Tajikistan country researcher for its survey, so his interview is not independent corroboration of the survey scores.

The available records support a narrow conclusion: disclosure has improved on the IBP's measured indicators, while public participation and several resource-revenue transparency practices remain limited. A current follow-up would require the latest government budget documents, an original Accounts Chamber audit, evidence of changes after the survey's 31 December 2024 assessment cutoff, and responses from the Finance Ministry and extractive-sector authorities.