Comments on the budgets of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation

The Court of Audit sent a letter to the House of Representatives on 21 November 2013 with comments on the 2014 budgets of the Minister of Foreign Affairs (BuZa) and of the Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation (BHOS).

The letter is one in a series in which the Court of Audit draws parliament's attention to certain aspects of the ministries' budgets.

To be able to account clearly for their actions in retrospect, the ministers should inform the House of Representatives by means of their budgets about their goals, the measures they intend to take and the financial resources they require. BuZa's budget has been split into a budget for BuZa and a budget for BHOS. This clarifies which ministry is accountable for which part of the budget. In the Court of Audit's opinion, however, other substantial improvements could also have been made to the budget when it was split. This was a missed opportunity.

The Court of Audit also draws attention to the following points in BHOS's budget:

  • regional programmes can weaken the focus on partner countries; 
  • there are risks of funding for the private sector becoming fragmented.

This letter is only in Dutch available.