Active transparency ranking of municipalities in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais: evaluation of transparency portals based on the Access to Information Law

Abstract

Active transparency is a dimension of public transparency provided for in the Right to Information Act, which provides for the disclosure of non-confidential information by public agencies, regardless of requests. This article aims to evaluate the online portals of a random sample of 197 municipalities in the 13 geographic regions of the state of Minas Gerais, with over 10,000 inhabitants, using the General Active Transparency Index (GATI), calculated based on the law and the principles of open government data. The Evaluation of Active Transparency for Public Entities, developed by the Public Transparency Program of Fundação Getulio Vargas was adapted and used for the study. The ranking shows that 72% of the portals are rated below 50, on the maximum scale of 100. There is also a large disparity between scores and the trend of greater transparency in the most populous cities, equal to or greater than 60. The results confirm previous studies that indicate high levels of opacity in the local public administration, mainly in smaller municipalities. The study contributes to the still relatively scarce literature about transparency at the municipal level, in the light of the principles of open government data, in the Brazilian state with the most municipalities.

Keywords:
Right to information; Transparency of Public Administration; Local governments; Acess to Information Law