The committee's deputy chair, Andrei Korobeinik (Center), said the bill does not meet its objectives, adding that in practice, the entire state budget will become less, not more, comprehensible to legislators.

"The finance minister wants to take a step ahead and allow money to be redistributed between programs within a ministry. In content, the role of parliament is lost. You can pass the state budget. For example, the regional ministry says they have a certain amount of money for bus transport, and then in the middle of the year they change their mind and give that money to ferry transport instead. While now they don't have that option, then it will come. How exactly that raises transparency is very hard for me to picture," Korobeinik said.

Finance Minister Jürgen Ligi (Reform) called such claims malicious, adding that the less flexibility there is in the budget, the more money remains inefficiently used – for instance, where some line items in the budget have been under- or overestimated.

"Within your own administrative purview, if at some point you see that something can be done more cheaply, then somewhere else money is more sensibly spent, then giving a limit like this makes the use of money more reasonable and diminishes bureaucracy. In the opposite case, we simply cannot make the budget picture more precise. Then we would end up forcing governments to make vague proposals, which are risk-free," Ligi said.

Some critics of the activity-based budget have painted themselves into a corner and are attacking things they don't understand, he added, noting that much of the work involves "calming down those who see this as the most important issue," those being "several activists in the opposition, and even a few in the coalition."

Reform MP Aivar Sõerd, who has been critical of the current state budget format for several years now, said that while there are all types of changes in the bill, the core issue — activity-based budgeting — is still not being addressed by the finance ministry.

"Budget expenses are being presented in broad outcome areas, programs, and program activities, meaning it is still not possible to read from the law who gets money, how much, and for what purpose," Sõerd said.

He noted that supporters of the activity-based budget approach are currently in the minority, both on the finance committee and within his and Ligi's party, while in the context of next year's state budget, to be processed in the autumn, what will change with the budget indicators is also key.

These indicators are part of the entire activity-based budget concept, he added, as they measure the effectiveness of the allocated money, yet "Many of the indicators are missing entirely, then some of them are self-fulfilling," he said.
Some are based on inaccurate or outdated statistics, and in any case fail to "reflect the effectiveness of the use of budget funds," Sõerd went on.

Ligi said that he is not aware of what, if anything, will change relating to indicators, in the under-process bill. "Don't ask me about the details of the draft," he said.

The ministry has explained that with its bill, the main State Budget Act will again show the total budget allocated to each institution. This will make it possible to see each government activity, how much of the spending is mandated by law, and how much consists of non-mandated expenses. Consequently, some elements of cost-based budgeting will be added to the existing activity-based budget approach.

Both the National Audit Office and the Chancellor of Justice had previously criticized Estonia's state budgets of recent years as being too complex, making it hard for not only the public but even the legislature to understand how state funds are being spent.

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