Lack of transparency, accountability in DBKL’s budgetary process

THIS letter adds to the public discussion sparked by The Star’s report on Dec 22, 2025, “Silence over DBKL’s 2026 budget raises concerns”, and the Kuala Lumpur Residents Action for Sustainable Development Association’s (KLRA+SD) press statement issued the same day. Both highlighted a troubling lack of transparency, continuity, and public accountability in Kuala Lumpur City Hall’s (DBKL) 2026 budgetary process – concerns that point to deeper structural weaknesses in how the city plans and governs public spending.

This raises a fundamental governance question: how can Kuala Lumpur claim to be a liveable, inclusive city when its most important policy instrument – the city budget – is prepared with minimal transparency and no meaningful public participation?

Public engagement appeared to end after the town hall in June 2025, with no subsequent public disclosure of draft budgets, timelines, or explanations of how residents’ feedback was assessed or incorporated. In fact, city residents have yet to be informed about the contents of the 2026 budget, even though at the time of writing we were less than 48 hours away from January 2026. For residents’ associations and community leaders – who possess deep, ground-level knowledge of neighbourhood needs – this reduces participation to a symbolic exercise rather than a meaningful one.

This is not merely a procedural lapse. It is a governance failure that directly affects Kuala Lumpur’s ability to build an inclusive, resilient, and sustainable city.

Linking budget processes to sustainable urban outcomes

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) provide a useful lens. SDG 11 calls for cities that are inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. These outcomes cannot be achieved when budgeting is detached from lived realities.

Communities know where pedestrian networks are unsafe, which public parks lack facilities, where ageing populations need better access, and where public investment would deliver the greatest social return. When such knowledge is excluded from decision-making, sustainability becomes a slogan rather than a practice.

SDG 16 stresses transparent, accountable, and inclusive institutions. Yet when residents cannot see how priorities are set, which projects are funded, or how trade-offs are made, trust inevitably erodes. Transparency after decisions are finalised is insufficient; it must be embedded throughout the budget cycle.

At a minimum, DBKL should improve transparency and accountability by establishing a dedicated webpage clearly explaining its budgetary process, spelling out timelines, and disclosing all relevant documents for easy public access.

Beyond the SDGs, Malaysia has also committed itself internationally under the United Nations’ New Urban Agenda (NUA). Paragraph 92 of the NUA explicitly commits governments to promote participatory, age- and gender-responsive approaches at all stages of urban policy and planning – from conceptualisation and design to budgeting, implementation, evaluation, and review – through permanent and well-resourced mechanisms of partnership between governments and civil society. Kuala Lumpur’s current budgetary process, where participation effectively stops before key decisions are made, falls short of this commitment.

Strengthening public participation in budget decision-making

This is where participatory budgeting (PB) offers a clear and globally-tested alternative.

As articulated by the Participatory Budgeting Project, PB is a democratic process in which residents directly decide how part of a public budget is spent – giving people real power over real money. It goes far beyond collecting ideas or opinions. PB is a structured process that typically includes early disclosure of budget parameters, community proposal development, technical review, deliberation, resident voting or prioritisation, and transparent reporting on implementation.

In cities around the world, participatory budgeting has reshaped the relationship between local governments and communities. It improves the quality of public spending by aligning it with real needs, strengthens accountability by making decision-making visible, and builds civic capacity by enabling residents to understand constraints, trade-offs, and costs. Crucially, it shifts engagement from one-off consultations to an ongoing cycle of shared decision-making.

PB also directly advances SDG 17, which recognises that sustainable development depends on partnerships between governments and civil society. PB institutionalises these partnerships by creating formal, recurring spaces where communities, officials, and technical experts work together – not as adversaries, but as co-creators of public value. It treats residents as partners in city-building.

Malaysia is not starting from zero. Penang’s participatory and gender-responsive budgeting initiatives demonstrate that inclusive budgeting can work within our administrative context. Kuala Lumpur, as the nation’s capital, should be setting the benchmark for transparent and participatory urban governance, not lagging behind smaller cities.

KLRA+SD’s intervention should therefore be understood as a constructive call for reform. Moving from one-off consultations to participatory budgeting would signal a decisive shift – from managing public input to genuinely sharing decision-making power, from silence to accountability, and from top-down planning to collaborative governance.

Towards a more inclusive budget process for Kuala Lumpur

DBKL and the Federal Territories Department should commit to piloting PB in Kuala Lumpur, beginning with a clearly defined portion of the city’s annual budget. At a minimum, this should include early publication of budget timelines and parameters, structured engagement with residents’ associations and civil society, and transparent reporting on how public decisions are made and implemented.

Kuala Lumpur’s budget should not merely be announced – it should be co-created. If the city is serious about meeting its commitments under SDG 11, SDG 16, SDG 17, and the New Urban Agenda, PB must move from aspiration to practice. Residents are ready to be partners in shaping the city’s future. It is time for DBKL and the Federal Territories Department to meet them at the table.

A city that aspires to be inclusive, sustainable, and well governed must treat its residents as partners, not spectators. PB is not a radical demand. It is a practical, proven pathway towards a more democratic, resilient, and sustainable Kuala Lumpur – a City for All.

JOSHUA LOW

Honorary secretary

Kuala Lumpur Residents Action for Sustainable Development Association (KLRA+SD)

KLRA+SD is an NGO advocating for a more sustainable, equitable, and environmentally-conscious Kuala Lumpur.