Open Budgeting (ZA0017)

• CitizENGAGE storyCitizens Monitoring Public Budgets (October 1, 2019)

• Lessons from Reformers: South Africa Empowers Citizens with Budget Data (April 1, 2020)

• Leveraging OGP for a Transparent COVID-19 Response in Africa (November 1, 2020)

• South Africa - Citizens Track Public Expenditure and Propose New Projects (July 1, 2019)

Status quo: South Africa is highly ranked in the world in terms of budget transparency. The vast amount of budget and reporting information available has however generally not equated to an equally high level of citizen participation in budget processes.

Main objective: Civil society involvement in the budget process in order to enhance the progressive realisation of socioeconomic rights, and enable citizens to track public expenditure.

Brief description: This commitment involves civil society in various aspects of the budget process from planning to implementation and monitoring and evaluation, enabling them to have a firmer grasp of how national resources are generated, distributed and reported upon.

Challenges: This commitment addresses the OGP grand challenge of More Effectively Managing Public Resources.

Intended results: The commitment of involving civil society in the budget process is all encompassing as it addresses the various OGP values through measures that will be taken to fulfil the commitment. These measures and their contributions to the OGP values are outlined below:
• Continuing to publish extensive budget data and the reforms being carried out by the Office of the Chief Procurement Officer in the National Treasury to make extensive procurement information available on a centrally accessible websites. Through these initiatives, government held information is put in the public domain- allowing for public analysis and scrutiny, affording citizens the opportunity to track government’s progress in terms of spending commitments made during the budget process. This aligns with the OGP values of access to information and public accountability.
• Support civil society in their preparation of citizen-friendly publications about national budgets tabled in Parliament. This also aligns with the OGP value of access to information.
• Discussions regarding the possible creation of a data portal advances the OGP value of technology and innovation for openness and accountability, as it will provide an interactive media platform for citizens to engage with government officials and receive feedback on specific aspects of the budget process. It will also allow for information sharing, public participation, and more accessible collaboration between citizens and government.
The organisation of budget road shows and information sessions serves to enhance civic participation as such platforms will afford citizens the opportunity to voice their opinions on specific budget issues relevant to their stakeholders.

Ambition: Opening up the budget process through the continuous publication of extensive budget and reporting information and data will be leveraged through organised engagement with civil society and will enable grass-root participation in governance, to ensure accountability in public financial management.

2. Open Budgeting

Commitment Text:

South Africa is highly ranked in the world in terms of budget transparency. The vast amount of budgeting and reporting information available has however generally not equated to an equally high level of citizen participation in budget processes.

The commitment involves civil society in various aspects of the budget process from planning to implementation and monitoring and evaluation, enabling them to have a firmer grasp of how national resources are generated, distributed and reported upon.

Milestones: Information sessions organised to engage with civil society and other stakeholders on the budgetary and reporting issues. Civil society engagement on current procurement reforms being undertaken by the Office of the Chief Procurement Officer in the National Treasury. The National Treasury will continue to provide information and support to civil society organisations to enable them to publish Citizens’ Guides to the Budget. The National Treasury will collaborate with civil society organisations to discuss the possible development of an interactive data portal to furnish the public with extensive information on the budget and expenditure outcomes to make data more understandable and to aid civil society in their analysis.

Responsible institution: South African National Treasury

Supporting institutions: Government departments

Start date: 2015 .

End date: 2016/17

Context and Objectives

South Africa has consistently performed well in the International Budget Partnership’s Open Budget Survey, ranking second among all countries surveyed in 2012 and third in 2015.^{[Note121: International Budget Partnership Open Budget Survey 2012 7; International Budget Partnership Open Budget Survey 2015 7. ],[Note122: International Budget Partnership Open Budget Survey 2015 4. ]} While faring much better than average in the latest Open Budget Survey,^{[Note123: International Budget Partnership Open Budget Survey 2015 (no date) 71–72. ]} South Africa also has room to deepen citizen engagement on public finances.^{[Note124: Kay Brown, 'How open budgeting empowers you, the ordinary South Africa' Cape Times (5 May 2016) 2. ]} From a civil society perspective, conversations have increasingly centred on the usability and accessibility of budget information as an enabler of participation, rather than just fiscal transparency.^{[Note125: Ms Zukiswa Kota, Head of Monitoring and Advocacy, Public Service Accountability Monitor, interview with IRM researcher, 29 September 2017. ]}

The objective of Commitment 2 is to involve civil society in the budget process in order to enhance the progressive realisation of socioeconomic rights, and enable citizens to track public expenditure. Commitment 2 addresses the problem of lower than optimal participation in budgetary processes in a manner that has relevance to the OGP values of access to information, civic participation, and technology and innovation for transparency and accountability. The commitment entails making government-held information on the budget and procurement accessible to the public via centrally accessible websites, and envisions new platforms for citizens to voice their opinions on specific budget issues through budget roadshows and information sessions and an interactive data portal. At present, a large amount of data on the national budget^{[Note126: 'Documents – National Budget', National Treasury, http://www.treasury.gov.za/documents/national%20budget/default.aspx.]} and procurement^{[Note127: 'Tender into', National Treasury', http://www.treasury.gov.za/tenderinfo/default.aspx. ]} is made available via the website of the National Treasury, but the data is static and not conducive to interaction with the public.^{[Note128: Kay Brown, Chief Director: Expenditure Planning, National Treasury; Andisile Best, Director: Budget Reform, National Treasury; Prudence Cele, Deputy Director: Budget Reform, National Treasury, focus group discussion with IRM researcher, 5 September 2017.]} A centralised database of tenders curated by the Office of the Chief Procurement Officer (eTender) is outdated and the links to the documents are not live.^{[Note129: 'eTender Publication: Awarded tenders', National Treasury, http://www.etenders.gov.za/content/awarded-tenders. ]}

The commitment text proposes four objectively verifiable activities to achieve the objective, though it leaves some room for interpretation as to their clarity and measurability. Commitments to ‘engage’, ‘provide support’, or to ‘collaborate’ with civil society, for example, could be made more specific by way of reference to the form, timing, or number of engagements. But the object of the activities, such as information sessions, procurement reforms, support for the publication of Citizens’ Guides to the Budget, and an interactive data portal, and the actors involved, are nevertheless verifiable.

If fully implemented as written, and given South Africa’s existing high level of budget transparency, this commitment would be a moderate step forward, as it could deepen public interaction with budget and procurement data on a nationwide scale.

Completion

All activities proposed with this commitment were completed on time, and some have exceeded their original scope.

The National Treasury has ramped up budget information sessions, particularly around the time of the annual presentation of the budget.^{[Note130: Kay Brown, Chief Director: Expenditure Planning, National Treasury; Andisile Best, Director: Budget Reform, National Treasury; Prudence Cele, Deputy Director: Budget Reform, National Treasury, focus group discussion with IRM researcher, 5 September 2017.]} The National Treasury has routinely engaged specific members of the public (such as the business fraternity and university students) in budget information sessions. These were generally defined by National Treasury and were not collaborative in nature. In response to requests from CSOs for more collaborative, dialogue-based engagements, the Budget Reform Directorate engaged with CSOs through the Public Service Accountability Monitor to jointly craft a series of budget engagements. A range of CSOs were involved in the process of defining the format, length and content of the workshops. The approach was very encouraging in that the perspectives and 'budget asks' of participating CSOs were taken into consideration and informed the workshop plans.^{[Note131: Ms Zukiswa Kota, comment submitted on Draft IRM Progress Report, 2 February 2018. ]} Not all information sessions took place as planned however, and the latest engagement – prior to the Medium Term Budget Statement in October 2017 – was a single-day briefing of CSOs by the Minister of Finance and Treasury officials. Ms Zukiswa Kota, Head of Monitoring and Advocacy at the Public Service Accountability Monitor, expressed disappointment that a more collaborative approach was not followed and highlighted the difficulty of re-introducing innovative approaches to new principals.^{[Note132: Ms Zukiswa Kota, Head of Monitoring and Advocacy, Public Service Accountability Monitor, interview with IRM researcher, 29 September 2017. ]}

Civil society engagement on procurement reforms undertaken by the Office of the Chief Procurement Officer has been hamstrung by the resignation of the Chief Procurement Officer, Kenneth Brown, in December 2016^{[Note133: Stuart Lowman 'Corruption buster Kenneth Brown to leave National Treasury. All eyes on his replacement' BizNews, 14 December 2016, https://www.biznews.com/leadership/2016/12/14/kenneth-brown-national-treasury/. ]} and the replacement of the acting Chief Procurement Officer, Schalk Human, in September 2017.^{[Note134: National Treasury, 'Media Statement: Changes to Senior Management', 4 September 2017. ]} In November 2017, Deputy Director-General of the Budget Office, Michael Sachs, also resigned.^{[Note135: Katherine Child, 'Treasury confirms Sachs’ resignation', Times Live, 13 November 2017, https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/business/2017-11-13-treasury-confirms-sachs-resignation/.]}

Apart from information sessions, the National Treasury has provided support to CSOs for purposes of preparing Citizens’ Guides. It also offered these organizations first access to budget documents, alongside the media, on the day that budgets are presented.^{[Note136: Kay Brown, Chief Director: Expenditure Planning, National Treasury; Andisile Best, Director: Budget Reform, National Treasury; Prudence Cele, Deputy Director: Budget Reform, National Treasury, focus group discussion with IRM researcher, 5 September 2017.]} A Citizens’ Guide to the 2015/2016 Budget was prepared in cooperation with the International Budget Partnership as a result of this process.^{[Note137: Kay Brown, Chief Director: Expenditure Planning, National Treasury; Andisile Best, Director: Budget Reform, National Treasury; Prudence Cele, Deputy Director: Budget Reform, National Treasury, focus group discussion with IRM researcher, 5 September 2017.]} This was only done in 2015; since then the Treasury has not released disaggregated budget information that would allow the meaningful completion of this task.

Government-civil society collaboration on the development of an interactive data portal on budget and expenditure outcomes has exceeded original plans. A governance framework for the project has been formalised and National Treasury, with the support of the Government Technical Advisory Committee (GTAC), has appointed a service provider.^{[Note138: Kay Brown, Chief Director: Expenditure Planning, National Treasury; Andisile Best, Director: Budget Reform, National Treasury; Prudence Cele, Deputy Director: Budget Reform, National Treasury, focus group discussion with IRM Researcher, 5 September 2017; Ms Zukiswa Kota, Head of Monitoring and Advocacy, Public Service Accountability Monitor, interview with IRM researcher, 29 September 2017; Adi Eyal, Director, OpenUp, interview with IRM researcher, 22 September 2017.]} The project has been designed with broad civil society consultation to ensure data available through the portal is useful for a broad a range of users, to be utilized for research, developing apps, hosting hackathons, and other related uses.^{[Note139: Kay Brown, Chief Director: Expenditure Planning, National Treasury; Andisile Best, Director: Budget Reform, National Treasury; Prudence Cele, Deputy Director: Budget Reform, National Treasury, focus group discussion with IRM researcher, 5 September 2017; Ms Zukiswa Kota, Head of Monitoring and Advocacy, Public Service Accountability Monitor, interview with IRM researcher, 29 September 2017.]} The governance framework for the project is composed of an Operational Working Group to deal with day-to-day operational issues relating to the project, some of whom are CSOs (including the Public Sector Accountability Monitor and Mobile Social Accountability Monitor. A steering committee with six CSOs and government officials monitors more overarching governance questions, such as the inclusivity of the data being made available through the portal.^{[Note140: Ms Zukiswa Kota, Head of Monitoring and Advocacy, Public Service Accountability Monitor, interview with IRM researcher, 29 September 2017.]}

Early Results

As a general observation, both government and civil society actors characterised the working relationship between the partners as mature and fruitful, with several notable factors of success. The current relationship grew out of the work of the civil society-based Budget and Expenditure Monitoring Forum (BEMF) (which has since ceased to exist). In the absence of a formal CSO structure such as the BEMF, a coordinator (Ms Zukiswa Kota, Head of Monitoring and Advocacy, Public Service Accountability Monitor) served as a point of contact and coordination between the National Treasury and a loose coalition of CSOs interested in budgetary reform and transparency. There was a clear mutual commitment on the part of all actors to budgetary transparency. The group was inclusive and allowed any organisation interested in and committed to budget transparency to participate in the space for policy debate. Finally, the fact that CSOs participated allowed for reaching a wider pool of interested parties.^{[Note141: Kay Brown, Chief Director: Expenditure Planning, National Treasury; Andisile Best, Director: Budget Reform, National Treasury; Prudence Cele, Deputy Director: Budget Reform, National Treasury, focus group discussion with IRM researcher, 5 September 2017; Ms Nontando Ngamlama, Executive Director, Afesis Corplan, interview with IRM researcher, 18 September 2017; Ms Zukiswa Kota, Head of Monitoring and Advocacy, Public Service Accountability Monitor, interview with IRM researcher, 29 September 2017; Ms Damaris Kiewiets, Community Liaison Officer of the Commuity Engagement Unit, University of the Western Cape, interview with IRM researcher, 7 September 2017. ]} The inclusion of civil society actors in the meetings held for purposes of developing tender documentation and appointing the service provider for the portal project is regarded as being a particularly innovative form of collaboration that has grown out of this project.^{[Note142: Ms Zukiswa Kota, Head of Monitoring and Advocacy, Public Service Accountability Monitor, interview with IRM researcher, 29 September 2017.]}

Information sessions and Treasury support to CSOs in the preparation of Citizens’ Guides to the Budget have been useful, as they have enabled organisations to access the data and technical support from the Treasury efficiently. This has allowed CSOs to share information quickly as an ‘alternative voice’ on the budget, alongside government and the media. These meetings were particularly important in the case of the presentation of the Medium-Term Budget.^{[Note143: Ms Zukiswa Kota, Head of Monitoring and Advocacy, Public Service Accountability Monitor, interview with IRM researcher, 29 September 2017.]} The progress achieved in collaboration around the interactive data portal—which has extended into the governance framework for the project including the tendering process—is further indicative of the success of this commitment.

However, at the time of writing, there is a perception amongst Treasury officials and CSOs that the productive relationships that have been forged are in jeopardy of breaking down due to the numerous changes in senior management that have recently taken place in the National Treasury.^{[Note144: Kay Brown, Chief Director: Expenditure Planning, National Treasury; Andisile Best, Director: Budget Reform, National Treasury; Prudence Cele, Deputy Director: Budget Reform, National Treasury, focus group discussion with IRM researcher, 5 September 2017; Ms Zukiswa Kota, comment submitted on Draft IRM Progress Report, 2 February 2018.]}

Next Steps

While the working relationship between government and civil society in respect of this commitment has been productive, Ms Zukiswa Kota, expressed concern that much of this is heavily dependent upon the people and personalities involved, and highlighted the need for greater institutionalisation of processes around budgetary transparency and the next phases of the interactive data portal.^{[Note145: Ms Zukiswa Kota, Head of Monitoring and Advocacy, Public Service Accountability Monitor, interview with IRM researcher, 29 September 2017.]} This could occur through the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) articulating duties pertaining to budget transparency in the Key Performance Areas and Indicators within the National Treasury. There is also a need for the open budget process to become a government-wide commitment that goes beyond the National Treasury.

The IRM researcher recommends that the commitment on open budgeting be included in the next action plan, with the objective of deepening government-civil society collaboration. This can be done through jointly designed information sessions, completing the implementation of the interactive budget data portal, and supporting wide-ranging awareness campaigns on its existence and capabilities. Budget information released should be useful and disaggregated to the level of locality and facility so that citizen groups can track the resources being provided and whether proper services are being delivered. Incorporating the public participation standards produced by the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency (GIFT) can further enhance this commitment to ensure accessibility, inclusiveness, and timeliness throughout the budgeting process.^{[Note146: http://www.fiscaltransparency.net/pp_principles/. ]}

2. Open Budgeting

Commitment Text:

South Africa is highly ranked in the world in terms of budget transparency. The vast amount of budgeting and reporting information available has however generally not equated to an equally high level of citizen participation in budget processes.

The commitment involves civil society in various aspects of the budget process from planning to implementation and monitoring and evaluation, enabling them to have a firmer grasp of how national resources are generated, distributed and reported upon.

Milestones: Information sessions organised to engage with civil society and other stakeholders on the budgetary and reporting issues. Civil society engagement on current procurement reforms being undertaken by the Office of the Chief Procurement Officer in the National Treasury. The National Treasury will continue to provide information and support to civil society organisations to enable them to publish Citizens’ Guides to the Budget. The National Treasury will collaborate with civil society organisations to discuss the possible development of an interactive data portal to furnish the public with extensive information on the budget and expenditure outcomes to make data more understandable and to aid civil society in their analysis

Responsible Institution: South African National Treasury

Supporting Institutions: Government departments

Start Date: 2015

End Date: 2016/17

Commitment Aim

This commitment aimed to deepen citizen engagement in the budget process in order to enhance the progressive realisation of socioeconomic rights and enable citizens to track public expenditure. The commitment entailed making government-held information on the budget and procurement accessible to the public via centrally accessible websites, and envisioned new platforms for citizens to voice their opinions on specific budget issues through roadshows, information sessions and an interactive data portal.[13]

Status

Midterm: Complete

By the time of the midterm review, the government had completed the activities associated with this commitment and some activities exceeded their original scope. The Budget Reform Directorate of the National Treasury engaged with a number of CSOs through the Public Service Accountability Monitor to craft a series of budget engagements where the perspectives and budget requests of participating CSOs were taken into consideration and informed the workshop plans.^[14] The government and CSOs also collaboratively developed an interactive data portal on budget and expenditure outcomes. A governance framework for the project had been formalised, comprising an Operational Working Group to deal with day-to-day operational issues, and a steering committee tasked with considering overarching governance issues, such as the relevance and accessibility of the data on the interactive portal. CSOs were represented on both tiers of the governance framework.^[15] The government made little progress in developing a platform for making government-held information on procurement publicly accessible, as there had been rapid change in the senior leadership of the Office of the Chief Procurement Officer.^[16]

Notwithstanding the completion of this commitment by the midterm, the launch in February 2018 of ‘Vuleka Mali’, an online budget data portal, is a major development extending the aim of this commitment.[17] The data portal was initially focused on the budget, but is planned to be extended over time to include wider government institutional information, including performance and procurement information.[18] The site contains links to national and provincial department budgets for four cycles (from 2015-2016 to 2018-19),[19] learning resources on the budget and budget process in five official languages,[20] and links to additional datasets, including analyses contributed by civil society stakeholders and other socio-economic data sources (for example, the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation’s evaluations repository, which contains detailed documents for every major government evaluation undertaken since 2006).[21]

The National Treasury developed Vuleka Mali in collaboration with IMALI YETHU, an open coalition of CSOs working to make budget information more accessible, user-friendly, and to empower civil society during the budgetary process.[22] Vuleka Mali has been developed using an ‘agile’ project development approach, which entails iterative development in rapid cycles and active user involvement throughout the project cycle.[23] To this end, the project has incorporated hackathons (encouraging participants to work with data available through the portal), Data Quests (designed to understand user data needs), and civic information events.[24] The Treasury also co-ordinated a naming competition for the portal that extended to users who were not online (for example, the agency received competition names in paper envelopes.[25]

Did It Open Government?

Access to Information: Major

Civic Participation: Major

In recent years, South Africa has ranked high in the International Budget Partnership’s Open Budget Survey, ranking first out of 115 countries, tied with New Zealand, in 2017.[26] However, while budgetary information was made available on the National Treasury website, the data was static, unintegrated and not conducive to public interaction.[27] Prior to the commitment, there were opportunities for the public to participate in budgetary processes at national and provincial levels of government. Civil society associations could make submissions to the committees of Parliament or the provincial legislatures; prior to the release of major budgets the Treasury Communications team sometimes put out press releases asking South Africans for inputs (‘tips for Trevor’, ‘notes for Nene’), the Treasury co-operated with civil society to prepare Peoples’ Guides on the Budget. Also, civil society and the media were given access to the budget on the day of its release and were allowed to engage with government officials.[28] These opportunities still exist.

However, Treasury officials and CSOs did not believe that the levels of participation were optimum.[29] The technicality of the process, and the form in which information was made available, still made the process intimidating.[30] Glen Robbins, a research associate at the School of Economics, University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, said that CSOs were concerned about the lack of adequate space for budgetary engagement.[31] Organizations that were affected by budgetary cuts found that administrative barriers were put in their way when they wished to engage government officials on budgetary issues, particularly at provincial level.[32] South Africa accordingly wished to deepen its commitment to open budgeting through the completion of this commitment and the development of the Vuleka Mali portal.

In terms of access to information, the Vuleka Mali project provides consolidated, time series-linked access to budget data. For example, the portal enables users to view the budgets for all national and provincial departments, from FY 2015–2016 to 2018–2019. Each department’s page includes the departmental expenditure from the Estimates of National Expenditure, a book published along with the tabling of the budget in each FY; the budgets for each programme within a department, and the budgeted spending for each sub-programme. The portal sets out information on budgeted and actual expenditure, incorporating the estimates set out in the Medium Term Expenditure-Framework. As such, it is possible to determine if a department’s expenditure is increasing or decreasing in real terms. The portal includes information on the budgeting process and details of what the Treasury and different departments are busy with at different times of the year.

Civil society stakeholders agreed that Vuleka Mali had transformed the way Treasury presents budget data, with a concerted effort being made to understand and respond to the needs of data users. Kirsten Pearson, ex-government employee and current co-ordinator of the Budget Justice Coalition said that the information is presented in a visually appealing way and includes video material explaining the budgetary process through the eyes of the citizen.[33] Glen Robbins held that the portal was a major improvement to the previous forms of access to provincial budgetary information (hardcopy files and excel sheets that were not made available timeously). It was also helpful to have a site that brought the information together in one place.[34] Although Ms Zukiswa Kota, Head of Monitoring and Advocacy at the Public Service Accountability Monitor, agreed that the commitment had improved access to information, she said that much of this information was already in the public domain. The challenge going forward would be to extend the type of data available to sets that have not previously been made public, such as non-financial performance data, procurement information and provincial quarterly reports. This could involve strategic engagement with other state entities or departments.[35]

Civil society views on the commitment’s impact on civic participation were somewhat more muted. Kirsten Pearson believed that the Vuleka Mali portal promotes civic participation by enabling individuals and civil society organizations to know at which level it is best to participate (national or provincial level of government, line department vs Treasury), and when it is best to make submissions.[36] She acknowledged, however, that although digital exclusion was something the Vuleka Mali project team had considered and engaged, to some extent the portal still relied on the work of intermediaries who could advocate on behalf of others with lower levels of budget literacy.[37] Glen Robbins remarked that the accessibility of the information, and its impact on civic participation, could depend on the extent to which users were familiar with government processes.[38] Furthermore, the specificity of the data on the portal, and the interpretation of such data, could at times function as a barrier to civic participation. Rather than engaging on the substantive budgetary issue at hand, provincial government officials had in at least one case disputed civil society’s opinion on how the money was being spent. This pointed to a need to educate public officials on the use of the portal, alongside members of civil society.[39]

A strong opinion was nevertheless expressed that with IMALI YETHU, the Treasury had achieved a genuine partnership with civil society. Strong working relationships had been established between government and civil society, which had significant value for civic participation going forward.[40]

Carried Forward?

At the time of writing this report, South Africa has not finished developing its fourth action plan. The IRM researcher recommends carrying forward this commitment to the next action plan, with a focus on the Vuleka Mali project stages three (incorporating wider government institutional information) and four (incorporating spatial data to provide a view of budget-related information at national and provincial public entities and municipal levels across sectors and by economic classification). To deepen civic participation, project proponents could consider incorporating the public participation standards produced by the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency, working closer with budget intermediaries and developing an educational program on Vuleka Mali for officials in national and provincial governments.