Product Code Database
A black budget or covert appropriation is a government budget that is allocated for classified or other secret operations of a state. The black budget is an account of expenses and spending related to Military science and . The black budget is mostly classified because of security reasons.
A black budget can be complicated to calculate, but in the United States it has been estimated to be over US$50 billion a year, taking up approximately 7 percent of the US$700 billion military budget.
The use of CIFs is authorised under the General Appropriations Act (GAA) passed annually by the Congress of the Philippines. The Department of Budget and Management, the Department of Interior and Local Government, the Department of National Defense, the Governance Commission for GOCCs and the Commission on Audit further outlines their usage through Joint Circular No. 2015-01, which classify such funds into two categories:
These funds are subject to guidelines issued by the Commission on Audit (COA), but their oversight remains limited compared to other public expenditures due to the need for confidentiality.
While the COA retains the authority to audit CIFs, actual documentation is often redacted or classified, and auditing is conducted with discretion. Reports are submitted to select congressional oversight bodies, such as the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Intelligence and Confidential Funds, Programmes and Activities.
In recent years, civil society groups, media organisations, and watchdogs have raised concerns over the growing use of CIFs, particularly in civilian offices such as the Office of the President of the Philippines and the Office of the Vice President of the Philippines. Critics argue that the opacity of these funds renders them vulnerable to misuse and corruption, with limited avenues for public scrutiny. In 2025, the Philippine Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a city mayor for corruption in relation to confidential and intelligence funds.
The allocation of substantial CIFs to non-security agencies has sparked public debate. In particular, the allocation of confidential funds to top executive officials, including the President and Vice President, has been criticised as lacking transparency. Calls have been made for stricter guidelines, greater congressional oversight, and an independent audit mechanism to ensure the proper utilisation of taxpayer funds. One notable occurrence was in the controversial use of CIFs by Vice President Sara Duterte from 2022 to 2023, which led to her impeachment in 2025.
Legislative proposals have since been introduced to either restrict the use of CIFs or mandate clearer guidelines for their use, especially for agencies without direct mandates for national security or law enforcement. Progressive organizations have called for the total abolition of confidential funds, stating that funds should instead be spent on building classrooms and other forms of public service.
The bill, and the discretionary funds in general have been heavily criticized and objected by opposition parties such as Republican People's Party. At the time, it was claimed by opposition parties, that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was aiming to gain control of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) with the fund, which was tied to the Prime Ministry back then. MİT was subordinated to the presidency in August 2017.
According to law, covert spending can not exceed 0.5% of total spending in the budget, but an additional 2% can be used as "supplemental appropriations". In 2018 Turkish Ministry of Treasury and Finance estimated that the amount of presidential discretionary funds the President can use between 2019 and 2021 would be Turkish lira16.5 billion, 0.5% of total spending in the budget. In 2020 alone, the Presidency was granted TL14.1 billion covert appropriations.
The black budget has been known to hide multiple types of projects from elected officials. With secret code names and hidden figures, the details of the black budget are revealed only to certain people of Congress, if at all.
This budget was approved by the US National Security Act of 1947, which created the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council and reorganized some military bases with help of the Defense Department.
The U.S. Government claims that the money given to this budget investigates advanced sciences and technologies for military uses. This kind of research is responsible for the creation of new aircraft, weapons, and satellites.
In 2018, some newspapers reported that the Trump administration requested $81.1 billion for the 2019 black budget. The request included $59.9 billion for the National Intelligence Program, covering non-military programs and activities, and $21.2 billion for the Military Intelligence Program which covers Intelligence activities by the Department of Defense. “In total, these two are more than 3.4% higher than the Fiscal Year request and the largest since then... and the largest announced since the government began disclosing its intelligence budget request in 2007..." according to The Washington Times Andrew Blake.
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