The Office of the Auditor -General’s role is by no means minor, for it plays a major role in curbing corruption and acts as a ‘’watchdog’’ of the nation over public funds. Amidst high mismanagement and misuse of public resources, as well as corruption, especially in developing countries, the major question one asks is how effective the Auditor -General can be in ensuring good governance within state departments so as to improve service delivery. The gaps between approved budgets and the realisation of policy and development goals stand among key governance challenges in many developing countries. Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) play an important role in holding governments to account. However, many SAIs including AGSA face serious challenges when trying to evaluate the expenditures and performance of government agencies. Therefore this study suggests that more resources should be invested in the office of the AG so as to allow it to carry out its duties without impediments. Good governance and public finance accountability is becoming increasingly important in the public sector. One means of effecting good governance and accountability is through auditing. For this reason the Office of the Auditor-General through the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1996 (Act 108 of 1996 section 216 (1)) was established to facilitate and encourage good governance and effective accountability through auditing.

No description available.

Changes occurred with the enactment of Law 9478 of 1997, led to some municipalities a financial condition inside, due to the higher inflow of royalties from oil and natural gas. The increase in revenue from royalties from oil and natural gas also ran on the other hand, the extraordinary expansion of the oil sector and the escalation of international prices of raw materials. The sum of these features plus a recipe mean expressive, is an important opportunity to expand investment and to meet the social demands. Royalties are derived from the operation of a nonrenewable resource, which implies that it has a period of exhaustion. For this reason, the literature stresses that his application should be made in capital and human capital. The overall goal of this dissertation is to analyze what were the purposes of royalties on public finances of the federal entities in the period from 1999 to 2011. From the methodology were characterized variables analysis. The analysis model was adopted panel data, which combines cross-sectional data with time series. Based on the tests, it was found that the counties most dependent on royalties increased capital expenditures with increased royalties, both from the perspective as the proportion per capita tax. For personnel costs, it was noted that these were influenced by royalties per capita in all municipalities. Moreover, from the perspective of tax ratio, the tests showed that the more dependent counties, showed a negative relationship. With regard to expenditure on education and culture, it was noted that royalties per capita influenced its formation in considerable part of the municipalities. However, in addressing the proportion fiscal few municipalities were affected, while in the cities most dependent inverse relationship exhibited. As for social spending on health, sanitation, housing and urban development was seen that some of these municipalities increased spending on the inflow of royalties. Finally, in the area of environmental expenditures, only the counties most dependent on royalties increased their spending with increased use. / As transformações ocorridas com a promulgação da lei 9.478, de 1997, propiciaram a alguns municípios brasileiros uma condição financeira privilegiada, em razão do maior ingresso de royalties provenientes da exploração de petróleo e gás natural. A elevação das receitas de royalties de petróleo e gás natural também decorreu, por outro lado, pela extraordinária expansão do setor petrolífero e pela escalada dos preços internacionais da matéria prima. A soma desses recursos além de significar uma receita expressiva, é uma importante possibilidade de ampliação dos investimentos e para o atendimento das demandas sociais. Os royalties são provenientes da exploração de um recurso natural não renovável, o que implica dizer que ele possui um prazo de esgotamento. Por esta razão, a literatura reforça que sua aplicação deve ser feita em bens de capital e capital humano. O objetivo geral desta dissertação é analisar quais foram os efeitos da aplicação dos royalties sobre as finanças públicas dos entes federativos no período de 1999 a 2011. A partir da metodologia foram caracterizadas as variáveis de análise. O modelo de análise adotado foi o de dados em painel, que combina dados de corte transversal com séries temporais. Com base nos testes, foi verificado que os municípios mais dependentes dos royalties elevaram as despesas de capital com o aumento dos royalties, tanto pela ótica per capita como pela proporção fiscal. Para as despesas com pessoal, observou-se que estas foram influenciadas pelos royalties per capita em todos os municípios. Ademais, pela ótica da proporção fiscal, os testes apontaram que os municípios mais dependentes, exibiram relação negativa. No que se refere às despesas com educação e cultura, notou-se que os royalties per capita influenciaram sua formação em parte considerável dos municípios. Porém, na abordagem da proporção fiscal poucos municípios foram influenciados, ao passo em que os municípios mais dependentes exibiram relação inversa. Já para às despesas sociais com saúde, saneamento, habitação e urbanismo foi visto que parte dos municípios aumentaram estas despesas com o ingresso de royalties. Por fim, na área ambiental dos gastos, apenas os municípios mais dependentes de royalties elevaram suas despesas com o aumento do recurso.

The objective of the study was to investigate challenges affecting the effective implementation of the Public Finance Management Act, 1999 (Act No. 1 of 1999 as amended by Act No. 29 of 1999) in the Eastern Cape Province with specific reference to the Provincial Department of Public Works. The research study has been conducted in such a manner that the reason to send a team of experts by the DPSA on approval by the President to come to the Eastern Cape and assist the ailing administrations of four departments is determined. The four departments that had a problem were: 1. Department of Roads and Public Works 2. Department of Health 3. Department of Education and 4. Department of Social Development The roads function of the Department of Roads and Public Works was later transferred to the Department of Transport and the Department of Roads and Public Works changed the name to Department of Public Works in September 2004. The team that was sent to the Eastern Cape together with the Director-General of the Province and the Superintendent-General of the Provincial Treasury formed up the IMT. The objective was to introduce turnaround strategies that would enable the four departments to effectively and efficiently implement the PFMA to the best interest of the South African Government. The PFMA is part of the broader strategy on improving public financial management in the public sector in the Republic of South Africa. It prescribes measures to ensure responsibility, accountability and transparency in national and provincial departments. Qualified Auditor-General’s reports for the previous financial years compelled the President in 2002 to establish Interim Management Team (IMT) in the Eastern Cape, comprising of experts from national government, to assist the ailing administration in four provincial departments, including the Department of Roads and Public Works. Questionnaires to employees, Auditor-General, Provincial Director-General, Superintendent-General of Provincial Treasury and as well as to the Accounting Officer of the Department of Public Works, were designed and issued out for completion. Interviews were also conducted to some of the employees. The assumption is that the majority of employees do not understand policies and procedures of the department and they displayed this by remaining neutral in questions asked and disagreed with some of the statements. During the interview process, the majority emphasised their protest against over usage of consultants by the department. Preference given to candidates from outside the department when senior posts are advertised instead of looking for excellently performing candidates from the internal ranks of serving employees, has been outlined as one of the elements contributing to low moral and low productivity in the workplace. Over usage of consultants and a big number of employees who disagreed with statements and remained neutral signify incapacity of the management to perfectly implement the PFMA for sound public financial management in the department. It has been established that regular risk assessments are not conducted, poor organisational structure with many posts that are not filled, no Anti-Corruption Unit to implement Public Service Anti-Corruption Strategy and, no clear managerial lines of accountability due to poor planning, ineffective internal controls and procedures, all render the department incapable of becoming one of the best provincial departments that get unqualified audit report from the Auditor-General. The findings provide clear indication that drastic transformation of the department into an institution that can perfectly implement the PFMA is necessary. The implication is that mismanagement of financial resources and fraud and corruption defeat service delivery objectives. Strategic objectives of the department are not achieved. The Eastern Cape Provincial Departments are obliged to align their strategic plans to the Provincial Growth and Development Plan (2004 – 2014). Therefore the implication is that, poor performance by the Department of Public Works impacts negatively to this provincial objective. Lack of effective control systems has negative implications on the administration of the department and renders it vulnerable to fraud and corruption.

Thesis (MPAM.) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / The study aims to investigate challenges in implementation of asset management strategy in the Limpopo Department of Public Works, Roads and Infrastructure, in order to recommend possible alternatives to improve asset management in the department. The Department achieved qualified audit opinions on asset management from the regularity audit conducted by the Auditor General for the financial years 2013/14 to 2015/16, which indicate that there is a lack of compliance, ineffectiveness and inappropriateness of asset management systems within the Department. This study examines the effectiveness of asset management practices in the LDPWRI and to determine the challenges faced by the LDPWRI in the implementation of asset management strategy and also to recommend strategic interventions that should be undertaken to improve asset management in the department. The information obtained from the literature identified the procedure which is used to manage assets in South Africa, the implementation process of asset management, and policies applied in the LDPWRI. The research process in this study includes methods such as a qualitative and quantitative approach necessary to collect the data. Furthermore, interviews and questionnaires were used in assessing the attitude of the participants. The primary data from the participants was obtained by the researcher to understand behaviour, working conditions, and the asset management process by the employees. The data revealed various challenges that are prevalent in how the inventory, record keeping, and the implementation of the strategies are implemented. The results showed that there are major challenges in managing inventory, and the information of the inventory is not recorded. There is also poor record keeping of the inventory. Furthermore, while the employees indicated that there is asset management strategy, a few indicated that there is no asset management strategy. The recommendations include that Asset Management strategies should be communicated to all employees and easily accessible on the Intra-Net of the Department for ease of reference and consultation. Urgent drastic steps should be taken to ensure that vacancies in the Asset Management and Logistics Directorate are filled without fail and within the acceptable service standards as stipulated by DPSA.

No description available.

This dissertation uses original datasets from the U.S. and Japan to explore issues in spatial economics and public finance. In the first chapter, I study how the relocation of inventors affects local and aggregate growth through technological diffusion across U.S. cities. I propose a quantitative spatial theory of growth and knowledge diffusion through internal migration. My model highlights two mechanisms by which productivity growth can be higher in one city than in another: (1) agglomeration forces and (2) knowledge inflows through internal migration. Using data on US cities, I find that knowledge diffusion explains approximately 40 percent of the spatial variation in productivity changes, and agglomeration forces explain the rest. I quantify the dynamic effects of place-based policies and find that reducing the costs of migrating to a small number of cities can improve aggregate efficiency while reducing disparities in productivity across cities. Growing spatial inequality has led policymakers to enact tax breaks to attract corporate investment and jobs to economically peripheral regions. In the second chapter, co-authored with Cameron LaPoint, we demonstrate the importance of multi-plant firms’ physical capital structure for the take-up and efficacy of place-based policies by studying a national bonus depreciation scheme in Japan which altered the relative cost of capital across locations, offering high-tech manufacturers immediate cost deductions from their corporate income tax bill. Combining corporate balance sheets with a registry containing investment by plant location and asset type, we find the policy generated big gains in employment and investment in building construction and in machines at pre-existing production sites, with an implied partial equilibrium fiscal cost per job created of $16,000. The policy produced a welfare gain of $56.72 billion, or roughly 40% of one year’s worth of average annual corporate profits. For eligible firms, plant-level hiring in ineligible areas outstripped that in eligible areas, suggesting reallocation of resources within firms’ internal capital and labor markets mitigates the spatial misallocation inherent in subsidizing low-productivity areas. How governments should choose the frequency of payments has received little attention in the literature on the optimal design of benefits programs. In the third chapter, co-authored with Cameron LaPoint, we propose a simple model in which the government chooses the interval length between payments, subject to a tradeoff between the costs of providing more frequent benefits and welfare gains from mitigating consumption non-smoothing. Using a high-frequency retail dataset that links consumers to their purchase history, we apply the model to the Japanese National Pension System. Our evidence suggests suboptimal intra-cycle consumption patterns with negligible retailer price discrimination. Model calibrations support the worldwide prevalence of monthly payment systems.

Thesis (D. Tech.) - Central University of Technology, Free State, 2005 / The primary objective of this research has been to undertake a critical investigation of the application of the budget process and the achievement of budget objectives in the Free State Provincial Government. The emphasis has been specifically on the planning and control functions of management. The justification for the research is the continuous demand for unlimited public services and the limited availability of the state‟s financial resources. The undertaking proceeded from the hypothetical viewpoint that a budget is designed to assure that public resources are spent according to the preferences of the taxpayer and the legislature. A budget promotes consistency in the process of resource allocation, and its implementation should be enforced by constant evaluation and monitoring. The research includes the following aspects: - The problems encountered by the Free State Provincial Government in its endeavors to optimize the effectiveness and efficiency of the implementation of the budget. - The fundamental principles of budget management in general, and in particular various types of budget and budget management techniques. - The evaluation of budgets as a basis for reporting on performance and the importance of such performance reports. The research methodology followed relies both on a survey of relevant literature and on empirical data. The former consists of a discussion regarding the extent to which the present budget system promotes effective and efficient budget control management and the achievement of budget objectives. As part of the empirical research an “ex post facto” analysis was undertaken of external audit reports and appropriation accounts over a period of fourteen years. In addition the fishbone or root-cause analysis approach was followed to identify core symptoms. The theoretical and empirical research yielded the following results: - The partial disturbance of the input/output relationship means that performance cannot be measured against profit as in the private sector. To compensate for this deficiency management should focus on financial statements and on audit and performance reports to measure performance. - Management needs to have an unimpeded access to budget information on the financial management system right from the beginning of each new financial year. - Estimates of expenditure (projections) should be captured on a monthly basis in the financial management system. With the implementation of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, budget projections must be regarded as compulsory. - Press reports and reports of the Auditor-General indicated that shortcomings relating to audit committees still exist both on national and provincial levels. This deficiency has a negative effect on the effectiveness of the internal audit function. - An annual percentage deviation in various departments between voted amounts and expenditure was substantial. In some instances the deviation - Losses should be monitored constantly, and management should be aware of the impact of losses and claims on financial resources. Their prevention should be part of each department‟s financial strategy. - Budget manipulation reduces the budget‟s effectiveness and efficiency as a means of performance measurement. The first possible solution to solve the problems associated with the budget is privatization of the service or function. The second possibility is the implementation of a quality control program. Its objective would be to reverse poor performance. To be successful, the quality control program should rely on clear accountabilities, effective partnerships and devoted leadership. A third recommendation might be the implementation of a quality assurance and quality control division for each department. The first component would gather all the necessary documentation to assure quality while the second would monitor effective application. The first requirement in measuring performance will be the motivation of all staff to be committed to the improvement of service delivery. The second challenge will be to train them accordingly. The third challenge will be the development of a performance report procedure for each department. A further recommendation is the analysis and reduction of underspending. Finally, accounting officers must implement effective and transparent processes of financial and risk management. Broadly viewed, the integration of budget and strategic planning initiatives of the National Treasury are a slow process that cannot be implemented overnight. National departments and provinces are, however, requested by National Treasury to improve on the outputs and the development of robust output performance measures and service delivery indicators. This viewpoint supports the proposed budget-management model aimed at effective objective achievement or sustainable development of the Free State. In future the budget management process could be based on this model to improve service delivery.

The purpose of this research was to determine whether or not the South African public procurement regime, within the framework set out in section 217(1) of the Constitution 1996, complies with the internationally accepted objectives or principles of public procurement, as contained in the UNCITRAL Model Law on the Procurement of Goods, Construction and Services (1994) and the World Trade Organisation‟s Plurilateral Government Procurement Agreement, and how these objectives are balanced with the need for the government‟s socio-economic policies. The main features of the public procurement reforms after South Africa became a constitutional state are the provision of constitutional principles applicable to public procurement; the creation of a single national legislative framework in terms of the Public Finance Management Act 1 of 1999 and the Local Government: Municipal Finance Management Act 56 of 2003, applicable to organs of state in the national, provincial and local spheres of government; and the creation of a supply chain management function that is fully integrated with the financial management processes in government, in which decisions on public procurement are decentralised to the procuring entities. The following broad principles applicable to public procurement, which are common to the Model Law and the GPA, were identified: (a) Economy; (b) Competitiveness; (c) Effectiveness; (d) Transparency; (e) The combating of abuse; (f) The avoidance of risk; (g) Accountability; (h) Fairness and equitability; and (i) Integrity. / Private Law / LL.D.

No description available.