PHOTO: NA/FACEBOOKThe United States State Department said on Wednesday that Pakistan needed to increase civilian oversight of public finances to improve its fiscal transparency. According to the State Department, fiscal transparency informs citizens how government and tax revenues were spent and was a critical element of effective public financial management. In its 2026 Fiscal Transparency Report: Pakistan, the State Department noted that Pakistan continued to lag in disclosing key financial data, including debt obligations and the budgets of military and intelligence agencies. In addition, it said that the military and intelligence budgets were not "subject to adequate parliamentary or civilian public oversight". According to the report, publicly available budget documents provided a "substantially complete picture of most of the government’s planned expenditures and revenues, including natural resource revenues".