One of the major challenges faced by transitional economies has been to adjust institutions that were designed to function in a planning environment to function in an increasingly market-oriented environment. One of the most important of these institutional reforms has been the restructuring of the budget system. The latter should be interpreted quite widely to encompass the institutional framework as well as the administrative procedures that determine the means whereby resources are transferred to government, how the use of these resources is prioritised and directed to agreed policy objectives, and then subsequently managed, controlled, monitored and reported on. Such systems must be defined in terms of a legal framework...