Theory and Reality – A Closed Glance of the Paraguayan Budgeting Process

Several attempts to improve the quality, transparency, credibility, discipline and realism of making the National Budget in Paraguay more reliable has been tried through the past years. International aid agencies such as Inter American Development Bank (IADB), World Bank, (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) were proponents of this challenge. Their goal was to ensure and enhance the realism of the Paraguayan budget process as the key fiscal policy tool, by clarifying the roles and increasing accountability of different government branches as an expression of government’s fiscal objectives and a guide to fiscal policy. (IMF, 2006) The aim of this research paper is to assess how near or far the Paraguayan budget is from realism, transparency, credibility, accountability, discipline and responsiveness; all key ingredients that theory regarding public budgeting embrace and deal with.