Thesis (MPAM.) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / The study examined the role of the Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC) towards effective financial management in a case study of City of Mbombela Municipality in the Mpumalanga Province. The MPAC is established in terms of sections 33 and 79 of the Municipal Systems Act, 2000 (Act 32 of 2000), to provide an oversight role and functions on behalf of council. Literature attest to the role of MPAC as to scrutinize the spending of the municipal budget at the end of the financial year, which mirrors the work done by the finance committee before the beginning of the financial year. The qualitative research method using semi-structured interviews was conducted with specific role-players as part of the identified population who were the most important participants and have contributed to the research outcome. The respondents were selected in a purposive manner by targeting MPAC members and Senior Managers of the municipality, on account of their positions and experience, have more information than ordinary potential respondents. The study found that members of the MPAC do possess the required skills, knowledge and experience to perform their roles. Therefore, the study also reveals that most members of the MPAC do have financial management and accounting capacity hence they are capable in doing the oversight role in the municipality. Therefore, it is recommended that the municipality should develop and adopt a comprehensive MPAC policy. The adopted comprehensive policy should be used as a strategic tool to inform council on the effective performance of the MPAC or lack thereof. The study concludes by recommended that further researches should be undertaken on the oversight role of the MPAC with comparative approach to other municipalities within the province could give more depth and the municipalities can learn from each other.

Thesis (MPA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2011. / Since its inception in 1861 when the first public accounts committee was established in the United Kingdom, this oversight mechanism has developed into a model for non-executive financial oversight and accountability at the national and provincial levels of government throughout the Commonwealth and beyond. A few municipalities in South Africa have also established public accounts committees, but they are a few isolated cases. The hesitance on the part of South African municipalities to establish a good governance mechanism with a proven track record is a cause of concern, especially in view of the poor financial management that prevails throughout the local sphere of government. In this case study of the public accounts committee established in the City of Cape Town in 2006, the researcher explores the feasibility of the implementation of the public accounts committee model within the local government sphere in South Africa. Twenty internationally recognised public accounts committee practices were identified and used to probe the selected case to gain in-depth knowledge of the extent to which the committee adheres to these recognised practices. Where the committee deviated from accepted practices, the reasons for the deviation and its impact on the effectiveness of the committee were analysed. Finally, the key lessons learnt from the experience of the public accounts committee in the City of Cape Town are used in order to make two sets of recommendations: Firstly, recommendations on how the public accounts committee of the City of Cape Town can become more effective than it currently is – recommendations which are also relevant to any municipality wishing to establish a public accounts committee. The second set of recommendations is addressed to the national authorities in charge of finance and local government, as the challenge of establishing improved governance systems in local government is of national importance, and it is within the power of these authorities to remove a few key obstacles in the way of establishing municipal public accounts committees.

Submitted in fulfilment of Masters in Development Planning, Faculty of Engineering & the Built Environment, School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, 2016 / The purpose of the thesis is to assess municipal own sources of revenue in the Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. Section 229 of the Constitution of South Africa states that municipalities may impose rates on property and surcharges on fees for services provided by the municipality or on behalf of the municipality. The primary data obtained from the City of Johannesburg facilitated the assessment of property tax and user fees revenue performance of the municipality as well as the challenges in the administration of revenue. A case study approach was used and the data required was on assessment of property tax and user fees revenue performance of the municipality as well as the challenges in the administration of revenue. Data was therefore collected from the primary data sources.This research shed the light on challenges that the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality encounter in the process of tax rate and charges administration in order to raise enough revenue to cover the cost of service delivery. Findings in relation to revenue collection were based on the information obtained from a user’s survey, the department of revenue, head of property unit, MMC finance and the executive mayor. Amongst other challenges that affect the CoJ own source of revenue, is the issue of property valuation and billing system which is to allow the city to charges tax payers according to property market value. In addition, there is no proper line of communication between the city and the community about the necessity of property tax rates and fee charges. Hence, some members of local community are not fulfilling their property tax obligations because of poverty or by preference. Observations from the study indicates that practical difficulties related to tax base identification and the lack of human capacity contribute significantly to the underperformance of the property tax administration system across South Africa as a whole. The inadequate records on property information have contributed to the inefficiency of the property tax system since many taxable units are not known, and therefore, it becomes difficult for the taxing authorities to collect property tax. Consequently, the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality is unable to collect enough revenue to cover the cost of service delivery. In order to rectify these problems some of the measures recommended include the need to improve human capacity and the communication/collaboration between local community and the municipality. / MT2017

Tanto na área pública como na área privada, as necessidades de financiamento são diretamente proporcionais às decisões de investimento. Para cada unidade monetária a ser investida há a necessidade de se obter fundos para o financiamento desse investimento. Quando são levantadas questões sobre o assunto –necessidades de financiamento- e essas questões são associadas às finanças municipais, surge uma lacuna para a qual, até o momento, não há estudos e/ou pesquisas que forneçam uma resposta sobre como medir o risco de crédito dos municípios brasileiros. A busca dessa resposta é o objetivo deste trabalho. A pesquisa bibliográfica forneceu o aporte teórico, tanto em finanças e crédito, como no uso de modelos econométricos. A análise de modelos de insolvência, aplicados a empresas, contribuiu para orientar os modelos que poderiam ser testados e possivelmente orientados para a análise do risco de crédito dos municípios. A Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal (LRF), como uma primeira medida para iniciar o processo de gestão responsável, e, provavelmente, em um futuro próximo, a obrigatoriedade de divulgação dos demonstrativos financeiros e auditorias independentes sejam também componentes obrigatórios na gestão municipal, como também a adoção de “ratings" municipais, contribuíram para a motivação do desenvolvimento de um modelo de risco de crédito de municípios . Após a obtenção dos dados financeiros dos municípios brasileiros (no sitio da Secretaria do Tesouro Nacional), dos dados demográficos (disponibilizados em CD pelo Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística - Base de informações municipais 3), da opinião de diversos especialistas sobre seu conceito em relação ao risco de crédito apresentado por diversos municípios, do tratamento desses dados e da constituição de um banco de dados integrando todas as informações selecionadas, e aplicando-se a análise estatística discriminante ao banco de dados obtido, obteve-se um modelo estatístico com um nível de acerto aproximado de 70% / As many on public area as on private area, the financing needs are relative to investment decisions. For each monetary unit to be invested there is need to obtain funds to financing. When questions are made about this issues –financing needs- and those questions are associated to municipal finances, one hiatus appears at this moment, wich there wasn’t studies or researches to be able to provide a reply or a solution on the subject to measure the brazilians municipal credit risk. The search for this solution is the subject of the present work. The bibliographic research provide the theoretical base, as many in finances and credit, as econometrics modeling. The bankrupt modeling analysis applied to companies, contributed to orient the templates that could be tested and possibly oriented to municipal credit risk analysis. A special Law of Fiscal Responsibility (LRF), is the first rule to begin the responsible management process, and probably, in the near future, the obligation of disclosure the financial statements, and independent audits that may be the mandatory components on municipal management, as well as the adoption or acceptance of municipal ratings contributed to the motivation to development of one model of municipal credit risk. After the attainment of brazilian cities financial information, from the official National Treasure site, demographic data (available in CD of Brazilian Institut of Geography & Statistics’ database of municipal information), and about expertise’s judgments on the subject of concept in relation to credit risk presented for many cities, about the treatment of these information and the creation of a database that grant the full integration of selected information, applying the discriminant function analysiys to the database obtained, resulted a statistic model that hit a target level with approximatly 70%.

This research critically analysed the role, if any, that is played by the budgetary reforms in enhancing basic service delivery, with specific reference to the case of Amathole District Municipality. The main objectives of this study were to investigate and evaluate the causes of possible challenges encountered by the ADM in the implementation of local government budgetary reforms; to assess and determine the role played by budgetary reforms in promoting basic service delivery by the Amathole District Municipality; to analyse the extent to which budgetary reforms are used in the preparation of the municipal budget and the IDP; and to evaluate the level of ADM institutional capacity in delivering basic services to communities in terms of the municipality’s capital budget and financial plan. The study is premised on the fact that there is no guaranteed service delivery without a sound financial management and planning. In this study, it is acknowledged that municipalities in South Africa are struggling to implement the local government budgetary reforms; and as such, South African municipalities could succeed in rendering effective and efficient public services, provided the matters of governance are adhered to, as well as financial governance in particular. This research is solely based on the assumption that the Amathole District Municipality’s budgets and budget process, like other municipalities in South Africa, are done for the sake of compliance with the requirements of National Treasury and the MFMA – with less emphasis being placed on enhanced basic service delivery to communities. The study proposed to provide a brief literature review on the basic service delivery, with reference to the South African context, as well as a theoretical overview on the evolution of developmental local government budgetary reforms. The empirical survey and research methodology employed in the study are described, followed by the operationalization of the survey questionnaire used for gathering the field data. The research findings of the empirical survey are then statistically analysed, using statistical procedures. The qualitative data analysis involved thematic content analysis, being interpreted and reported on. The triangulation-research methodology was employed with the emphasis being on the quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The sample comprised councillors, officials and ward committee members. Questionnaires, with open and closed-ended questions, were employed for the councillors and the officials. Focus-group interviews were conducted with the ward committee members from the respective local municipalities.The findings strongly suggest that, the introduction of the budgetary reforms indeed resulted in a shift by municipalities from their core mandate – that is service delivery – to a more legislative-compliant mode of practice. Recommendations flowing from, inter alia, the results of the empirical study, are presented to improve financial governance and service delivery in the Amathole District Municipality, as well as in other municipalities in South Africa. If adopted, these recommendations should enable the Amathole District Municipality, as a development agent, to fulfil its developmental mandate, thereby addressing the matters of financial governance and service delivery.

Submitted by Gustavo Gomes (gustavolascasas@gmail.com) on 2013-09-25T12:43:11Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Ensaios em finan??as p??blicas municipais.pdf: 875614 bytes, checksum: dc145cd22b82eaa33bc4cda649abe175 (MD5) license_rdf: 23599 bytes, checksum: 9e2b7f6edbd693264102b96ece20428a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Roger Guedes (roger.guedes@fjp.mg.gov.br) on 2013-09-27T00:07:13Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Ensaios em finan??as p??blicas municipais.pdf: 875614 bytes, checksum: dc145cd22b82eaa33bc4cda649abe175 (MD5) license_rdf: 23599 bytes, checksum: 9e2b7f6edbd693264102b96ece20428a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-09-27T00:07:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Ensaios em finan??as p??blicas municipais.pdf: 875614 bytes, checksum: dc145cd22b82eaa33bc4cda649abe175 (MD5) license_rdf: 23599 bytes, checksum: 9e2b7f6edbd693264102b96ece20428a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Funda????o Jo??o Pinheiro / Esta tese busca discutir problemas relacionados ??s finan??as p??blicas municipais no pa??s. Um aprimoramento de nosso federalismo fiscal, com maior descentraliza????o de recursos e implementa????o de regras de transfer??ncias federativas com maiores incentivos pr??-efici??ncia ??? aumentando os incentivos pr??-obten????o de melhores resultados sociais por parte das unidades subfederadas ??? pode se revelar instrumento importante na melhoria de nossas condi????es sociais. Para isto, dividiu-se esta tese em quatro partes distintas. No primeiro cap??tulo, discutem-se os impactos das receitas petrol??feras sobre as finan??as p??blicas municipais. As mudan??as legais ocorridas no pa??s na d??cada de noventa do ??ltimo s??culo - relativas ao setor petrol??fero - levaram a crescente (e concentrada) transfer??ncia de recursos do setor para os estados e munic??pios brasileiros. A forte sensa????o que estes estariam sendo desperdi??ados de alguma forma vem suscitando discuss??es sobre a necessidade de se reformular sua distribui????o. As recentes descobertas de megacampos petrol??feros no pr??-sal do litoral brasileiro somente intensificaram este processo. Buscou-se identificar os efeitos destas transfer??ncias sobre as vari??veis fiscais municipais no pa??s. Detectou-se que n??o ocorreu substitui????o tribut??ria, ou seja, estes recursos n??o diminu??ram o esfor??o arrecadat??rio dos munic??pios. Em compensa????o, tanto os recursos cuja distribui????o ?? bem mais concentrada (referentes aos royalties excedentes) quanto aqueles mais bem-distribu??dos (referentes aos royalties originais) levaram as prefeituras a aumentar seus gastos correntes (piorando sua composi????o do ponto de vista social) e diminuir seus investimentos. O contr??rio parece ocorrer com os recursos cuja distribui????o se d?? de forma intermedi??ria (os royalties referentes ??s participa????es especiais. No segundo cap??tulo, discute-se o impacto das receitas petrol??feras sobre a profici??ncia dos alunos at?? a quarta s??rie prim??ria das escolas p??blicas municipais. As receitas petrol??feras ??? agregadas ou n??o ??? n??o se mostraram estatisticamente significativas na explica????o do desempenho observado pelos alunos da quarta s??rie prim??ria das escolas municipais em portugu??s ou matem??tica. Este resultado, entretanto, deve ser olhado com cautela, uma vez que n??o ?? trivial identificar como (e o tempo necess??rio) estes efeitos seriam gerados. Entretanto, diferentes fontes de receitas municipais impactariam de forma diferenciada as profici??ncias observadas nos testes de portugu??s e matem??tica, explicitando a necessidade de se entender melhor estas diferen??as para se desenhar mecanismo mais eficiente de repasse de recursos constitucionais aos munic??pios. No terceiro cap??tulo, estudam-se os impactos das emancipa????es municipais ocorridas na d??cada de 90 sobre o bem-estar das popula????es locais. Devido ?? Constitui????o Federal de 1988, o n??mero de munic??pios no Brasil multiplicou-se fortemente na d??cada de 90 do ??ltimo s??culo. Mais de mil munic??pios foram criados em todo o pa??s, fazendo seu n??mero ultrapassar a casa dos 5.500. Este processo tem sido interpretado de forma bastante negativa. Baseado em evid??ncias aned??ticas, se pressup??e que os atores pol??ticos locais o utilizaram para se apropriar de maior parcela dos recursos transferidos de outros n??veis governamentais. Entretanto, nenhum esfor??o mais sistem??tico foi realizado buscando calcular, de maneira efetiva, os resultados sociais l??quidos deste processo. ?? isto que se busca fazer aqui, utilizando dados sobre os munic??pios mineiros - cujo n??mero passa de 723 em 1991 para 853 em 2000. Foram detectados impactos positivos relacionados a diversas vari??veis educacionais e de sa??de. Ao mesmo tempo, o contr??rio ocorreu com os indicadores de pobreza e indig??ncia. Este resultado mostra que o movimento observado de emancipa????o municipal talvez tenha sido bastante ben??fico, sinalizando para a exist??ncia de mercados pol??ticos eficientes nestas localidades, o que indicaria a necessidade de se manter uma maior autonomia local relativa a processos de emancipa????o de distritos. Por fim, no quarto cap??tulo, analisam-se os impactos de lei (implementada em Minas Gerais) que buscou aumentar os incentivos pr??-efici??ncia das prefeituras municipais a partir das transfer??ncias federativas. Buscando melhorar as condi????es de vida dos munic??pios mineiros, o governo estadual mineiro instituiu, em 1995, a lei 12.040, conhecida como Lei Robin Hood. Esta permitia que 25% dos recursos de ICMS a serem distribu??dos aos munic??pios mineiros se dessem sobre resultados observ??veis em diversas ??reas tais como sa??de, educa????o, conserva????o ecol??gica, entre outras. Ou seja, esta institu??a, em rela????o a estas transfer??ncias, um contrato de alto poder com os munic??pios relacionados ??s pol??ticas p??blicas implementadas. O estudo destas transfer??ncias (relativas ?? educa????o e sa??de) mostrou resultados d??bios. Resultados positivos relativos ?? educa????o e ?? sa??de parecem ocorrer em todo o estado, mas os incentivos dados poderiam ser bem maiores - faz-se necess??rio um refinamento das regras da partilha destas transfer??ncias. Dada a relativa escassez deste tipo de contrato em transfer??ncias federativas, seja no Brasil, seja no restante do mundo, este resultado aponta a necessidade de utiliza????o de instrumentos de maior poder nas rela????es federativas, buscando incrementar as condi????es de vida locais. / This thesis aims to discuss municipal public finance issues. An improvement of the Brazilian fiscal federalism, with greater resources decentralization and the implementation of high-powered rules for the federative transfers may be an important tool in the improvement of our social conditions. To do so, this thesis was divided into four distinct parts. The first chapter discusses the oil revenues impacts on municipalities??? public finance. The legal changes that occurred in Brazil in the nineties in the oil and gas sector led to increasing royalties transfers to Brazilians states and municipalities. The annedoctical evidence that this transfers are not been used properly - in a way that would increment the local welfare - have originated a important discussion about these distribution rules. This paper tries to identify this revenues impacts over others municipalities??? fiscal variables. It seems that this did not impact the others sources of municipalities revenue. Unhappily, some of the resources (which distribution is either more or less concentrated) led the municipalities to increase their current expenditures and diminishes their investments efforts. At the same time, they are not spending this extra money in a way that would increment the local welfare. On the other hand, the resources which distribution is between these two limits has the opposite effect. The second chapter discusses the impact of oil revenues on the proficiency of fourth grade students of primary public schools. The oil revenues - bundled or not - were not statistically significant in explaining the observed student performance in Portuguese and mathematics. This result, however, must be analyzed with caution, since it is not trivial to identify how (and when) these effects would be generated. However, different sources of municipal revenue would impact differently the students??? proficiency scores, explaining why we need to better understand these differences to design more efficient constitutional transfer mechanisms to the municipalities. In the third chapter, we study the impacts of municipal emancipation occurred in the 90s on the well-being of local populations. More than a thousand of new municipalities were created at the nineties in Brazil, due the new Federal Constitution of 1988. There is anecdotic evidence that this was a pretty harmful process for the Brazilian welfare, but there were no systematic attempt to valuate it properly. This paper tries to do so using data from Minas Gerais municipalities which number has grown from 723 to 853 ones in that decade. The results suggest that this process strongly improved the welfare of the local population. This implies that local political markets are efficient and it should be allowed for any district to emancipate from its former municipalities, if their population wishes to do so. Finally, in the fourth chapter we analyze the impact of law (implemented in Minas Gerais) who sought to increase the incentives pro-efficiency of municipal governments. In order to improve the welfare of its citizens, the state government of Minas Gerais (Brazil) has imposed, at 1995, the state law 12.040, known as Robin Hood law. It stated that 25% of the revenue transferred to the municipalities should be allocated through observable results achieved in education, health, environment among others. In other words, this law established a high power contract between the state government and the municipalities, which is not very usual. This study shows that this law had a significant impact on the municipalities??? education and health. But it???s necessary to redesign these transfers??? rules, in order to improve its power and its results. These results shows that the use of high powered rules in federative transfers could be a strong mechanism in order to improve the population welfare. / Economia e Finan??as

Submitted by Ângelo Alves da Silva (angelo@gestaoalpha.com.br) on 2017-08-07T17:35:45Z No. of bitstreams: 1 TESE ANGELO=versão final.pdf: 3452257 bytes, checksum: 2fe47bf124fc2751dc7c5cfb42a77048 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Tereza Fernandes Conselmo (maria.conselmo@fgv.br) on 2017-08-08T23:36:42Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 TESE ANGELO=versão final.pdf: 3452257 bytes, checksum: 2fe47bf124fc2751dc7c5cfb42a77048 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-09T13:00:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 TESE ANGELO=versão final.pdf: 3452257 bytes, checksum: 2fe47bf124fc2751dc7c5cfb42a77048 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-06-09 / O principal objetivo deste trabalho foi analisar os impactos da Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal (LRF) no aumento ou diminuição das variáveis observadas nas finanças dos municípios brasileiros, especificamente no elemento de despesa INVESTIMENTOS e nas funções de governo EDUCAÇÃO e SAÚDE no período de 2001 a 2005 (depois da LRF) em comparação ao período de 1996 a 2000 (antes da LRF). A motivação desta pesquisa advém da expectativa de que a LRF possa ter contribuído para alavancar o volume de recursos aplicados no elemento de despesa Investimentos e nas diversas funções de governo, com destaque para Educação e Saúde, objeto deste estudo, haja vista a limitação que a referida Lei trouxe para os gastos com pessoal e para o controle do endividamento dos municípios brasileiros. Os resultados obtidos com esta pesquisa revelam que, no âmbito dos 2.644 municípios pesquisados, de todos os portes e de todas as regiões do Brasil, os impactos da LRF não provocaram uma homogeneidade de comportamento no tocante ao crescimento ou decrescimento orçamentário, ou seja, após o advento da LRF, houve municípios em que as aplicações de recursos públicos no elemento de despesa Investimentos e nas funções de governo Educação e Saúde aumentaram significativamente; em outros, aumentaram moderada ou timidamente e ainda em outros, diminuíram significativa, moderada ou timidamente, não demonstrando, portanto, um padrão uniforme de realização das aludidas rubricas orçamentárias. Naturalmente, pode-se depreender desse fato a questão da heterogeneidade das finanças dos municípios brasileiros, dentre os quais alguns se apresentavam bem equilibrados e outros muito endividados antes do advento da referida Lei; nos primeiros, os impactos da LRF foram positivos no sentido de aumentar os Investimentos e os gastos em Educação e Saúde; nos últimos, os novos gestores, temendo a responsividade de seus atos, pisaram no freio, diminuindo Investimentos e freando também gastos com Educação e Saúde no intuito de equilibrar as contas públicas. / The impacts of the Brazilian Fiscal Accountability Law (FAL) are analyzed with regard to variables´ increase or decrease in the public accounts of Brazilian municipalities, particularly on the expenditure item INVESTMENTS and on government administration in EDUCATION and HEALTH, between 2001 and 2005 (after FAL) compared to the 1996-2000 period (prior to FAL). Current research was foregrounded on the expectation that FAL may have contributed to leverage resources applied in the expenditure item and on several governmental functions, with special reference to Education and Health, the aim of current investigation. This is due to the fact that FAL has restricted expenditure on personnel and limited the debt capacity of Brazilian municipalities. Results reveal that, within the context of 2,644 big or small municipalities under analysis throughout the country, FAL´s impacts failed to cause a behavioral homogeneity with regard to budget growth or decrease. In other words, after the promulgation of FAL, several municipalities significantly increased their public Investments on Education and Health administration functions; others increased moderately or timidly their expenditures; others still, significantly, moderately or timidly decreased their expenditures. There was no uniform pattern for the achievement of the above budget items. The above data reveal the heterogeneity of the municipalities´ accounts, or rather, some had a healthy equilibrium, while others were in great debts prior to FAL. Whereas FAL´s impact on the former municipalities were positive due to increase in Investments and in expenditure on Education and Health, in the later, the new administrations feared the impacts of accountability of their activities, stepped on the brakes, decreased Investments and expenditure in Education and Health to maintain an equilibrium in public accounts.

Tanto na área pública como na área privada, as necessidades de financiamento são diretamente proporcionais às decisões de investimento. Para cada unidade monetária a ser investida há a necessidade de se obter fundos para o financiamento desse investimento. Quando são levantadas questões sobre o assunto –necessidades de financiamento- e essas questões são associadas às finanças municipais, surge uma lacuna para a qual, até o momento, não há estudos e/ou pesquisas que forneçam uma resposta sobre como medir o risco de crédito dos municípios brasileiros. A busca dessa resposta é o objetivo deste trabalho. A pesquisa bibliográfica forneceu o aporte teórico, tanto em finanças e crédito, como no uso de modelos econométricos. A análise de modelos de insolvência, aplicados a empresas, contribuiu para orientar os modelos que poderiam ser testados e possivelmente orientados para a análise do risco de crédito dos municípios. A Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal (LRF), como uma primeira medida para iniciar o processo de gestão responsável, e, provavelmente, em um futuro próximo, a obrigatoriedade de divulgação dos demonstrativos financeiros e auditorias independentes sejam também componentes obrigatórios na gestão municipal, como também a adoção de “ratings” municipais, contribuíram para a motivação do desenvolvimento de um modelo de risco de crédito de municípios . Após a obtenção dos dados financeiros dos municípios brasileiros (no sitio da Secretaria do Tesouro Nacional), dos dados demográficos (disponibilizados em CD pelo Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística - Base de informações municipais 3), da opinião de diversos especialistas sobre seu conceito em relação ao risco de crédito apresentado por diversos municípios, do tratamento desses dados e da constituição de um banco de dados integrando todas as informações selecionadas, e aplicando-se a análise estatística discriminante ao banco de dados obtido, obteve-se um modelo estatístico com um nível de acerto aproximado de 70% / As many on public area as on private area, the financing needs are relative to investment decisions. For each monetary unit to be invested there is need to obtain funds to financing. When questions are made about this issues –financing needs- and those questions are associated to municipal finances, one hiatus appears at this moment, wich there wasn’t studies or researches to be able to provide a reply or a solution on the subject to measure the brazilians municipal credit risk. The search for this solution is the subject of the present work. The bibliographic research provide the theoretical base, as many in finances and credit, as econometrics modeling. The bankrupt modeling analysis applied to companies, contributed to orient the templates that could be tested and possibly oriented to municipal credit risk analysis. A special Law of Fiscal Responsibility (LRF), is the first rule to begin the responsible management process, and probably, in the near future, the obligation of disclosure the financial statements, and independent audits that may be the mandatory components on municipal management, as well as the adoption or acceptance of municipal ratings contributed to the motivation to development of one model of municipal credit risk. After the attainment of brazilian cities financial information, from the official National Treasure site, demographic data (available in CD of Brazilian Institut of Geography & Statistics’ database of municipal information), and about expertise’s judgments on the subject of concept in relation to credit risk presented for many cities, about the treatment of these information and the creation of a database that grant the full integration of selected information, applying the discriminant function analysiys to the database obtained, resulted a statistic model that hit a target level with approximatly 70%.

MPM / Oliver Tambo Institute of Governance and Policy Studies / The aim of the study investigates the significance of Auditor General in the control of public funds in local government with specific reference to Mopani District Municipality in order to make recommendations that can assist in improving the control of public funds. The research identifies and assesses weaknesses in how Mopani District Municipality has been controlling its public funds by analyzing the Auditor General reports for the past three financial years and its implications to service delivery. The research further assesses the role played by Auditor General in influencing the internal financial control of the municipality and in auditing the performance of the municipality since in other municipalities money is paid to contractors for services not rendered. The study provides academic input into public administration, specifically in the area of improving service delivery performance, control and financial performance management in municipalities. The study could contribute to the establishment of effective ways of monitoring the control of public funds by municipalities. / NRF

<p>Local government is arguably the most significant sphere of government to lay citizens, as it is the point of contact of citizens with their government. Local government enables a direct link between the general public and the basic services that they are entitled to by means of their constitutional and legislatively entrenched rights. It is the only sphere of government that allows and encourages face-to-face engagement between citizens and their governors, providing the necessary platform for interaction, contact and communication. It is imperative therefore that this tier of government operate optimally and competently, as it represents a reflection of the operation of government wholly. Research unfortunately illustrates that public perceptions of local government are negative, with levels of trust in local government being substantially lower than those in provincial and national governments. The responsibility for failure to perform would lie squarely on the shoulders of those individuals leading any institution. The leading incumbents driving a municipality are the political and administrative heads, i.e. executive mayor and municipal manager.</p>