National Treasury says it is taking steps to strengthen public participation in the drafting of the national Budget in a bid to further improve transparency.
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana in January invited South Africans to share their suggestions about what the government should be spending on, how to address a large budget deficit, new sources of tax revenues and other Budget-relevant information.
This is usually a normal pre-Budget process to encourage public interest as the finance minster strives to strike a balance between competing national spending priorities.
However, Treasury on Friday said South Africa wanted to strengthen its commitment to a transparent budget system after maintaining its reputation as a global leader in this sphere.
This comes as South Africa came second in transparency in the 2021 Open Budget Index (OBI), a survey conducted among 120 countries by the International Budget Partnership (IBP).
IBP is the world’s only independent, comparative measure of budget transparency, participation and oversight.
The global transparency average is 45 out of 100, while South Africa scored the second best with 86 out of 100, a score which reflected South Africa’s commitment to transparency.
In the public participation category, South Africa scored 19 out of 100 countries.
The Treasury recognised that this was low, even though it is better than the global average of 14.
“Steps are already being taken following the last OBI survey results…to further strengthen public participation in the Budget process,” Treasury said.
“The pilot is in its second and final year and the objective is to improve the approach that will be used to solicit inputs from the public, in pursuance of improving public participation in the Budget process.”
In the oversight category, South Africa had an overall score of 81 out of 100.
South Africa scored 72 out of 100 on legislative oversight and 100 on audit oversight.
Of the120 countries, only 41 have adequate oversight.
Treasury said this reflected South Africa’s commitment to enhancing its budget process and fostering public participation as enacted in the South African Constitution.
Earlier this week, Godongwana encouraged good governance, fiscal prudence and effective service delivery at local government level.
According to the latest State of Local Government Report, of South Africa’s 257 municipalities, 175 are in financial distress – up from only 66 municipalities about a decade ago, in 2010/2011.
Godongwana told the Chris Hani District Municipality economic development and investment summit that municipalities were underspending on infrastructure.
For example, Godongwana said the Chris Hani District Municipality had underspent on infrastructure grants, and returned money to the national revenue fund in the past half a decade.
“It is unfortunate because this is the money that could have gone to executing its constitutional mandate of providing basic services,” he said.
“The trend is clear and troubling. It is unfathomable that a municipality in a province like the Eastern Cape, where poverty, inequality, unemployment indicators are consistently higher than the national average, could fail to spend money on providing key services.”
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