Transformative fiscal transparency (ZA0027)

Brief Description of the Commitment:

a) Recapping from the previous National Action Plans, South Africa continues to champion fiscal transparency, to promote public access to financial information and thus promote accountability. However, fundamental issues persist with connecting transparency to meaningful public participation that has the potential to be transformative and that ensures accountability of the government.
b) With the adoption by the Cabinet of the APRM-OGP complementarity, one of the APRM’s thematic areas on “democracy and political governance” has identified “promoting the rule of law, re-inforcing accountability and combating corruption” as critical issues.
c) Hence transformative fiscal transparency seeks to ensure that citizens have access to fiscal information that will empower them to hold public representatives accountable and thus play a key role in combating corruption.

What problem does the commitment aim to address?

1.1 South Africa’s APRM Second Generation Review Report dated February 2022 APRM Review Report clearly identifies the challenge of corruption and its association with ineffective accountability as a topical issue. Since corruption depletes the capacity of the state to deliver on its mandate, the issue of corruption affects all levels of society.
1.2 The impact of corruption on the ability of the government to deal with unemployment, poverty, and inequality means that the poor are the most affected by the impact of corruption on the country’s fiscus.
1.3 Hence transformative fiscal transparency empowers the citizens to have access to the requisite fiscal information kept by the government and thus help to re-inforce the accountability of the public representatives.

What are the causes of the problem?

The causes of the problem are multifaceted, though the APRM Review Report has among others identified the causes of corruption and lack of accountability as being exacerbated by weaknesses in the institutions that are meant to hold government accountable, inadequate consequent management in the public administration, insufficient capacity by the civil society to hold the government accountable.

What has been done so far to solve the problem?

The Vuleka-mali portal which is hosted by the National Treasury, has been the primary platform to anchor transformative fiscal transparency, with a focus on national and provincial financial data. The Vuleka-mali portal has been successful is ensuring that civil society has access to the budget data of national and provincial departments. Evidently more needs to be done to tackle the challenge of corruption and insufficient accountability by the government, especially at the local sphere of government.

What solution are you proposing?

The solution that is specifically proposed is to expand the scope of institutions whose financial data will be available in Vuleka-mali portal to also include Schedules 3A and 3C public entities as defined in Public Finance Management Act, 1999. Schedules 3A and 3C have the mandate to fulfil a specific economic or social responsibility of the government. They rely on government funding and public money, either by means of a transfer from the Revenue Fund or through statutory money. Additionally, financial data for the local sphere of government will be added to be part of the transformative fiscal transparency through the addition of the GoMuni portal which can be accessed at: Link to GoMuni: https://lg.treasury.gov.za/ibi_apps/signin - click on the public access.

What results do we want to achieve by implementing this commitment?

Given the anchor issues of promoting the rule of law, re-inforcing accountability and combating corruption; the expansion of scope of institutions whose financial data is available on the Vuleka-mali portal will enhance the levels of transparency and widen the number of public entities whose financial data is easily accessible to the community. By extension, such an enhanced level of community access to financial data will improve the level of accountability of government officials. Additionally, the municipal money portal will be added and an annual report will be published and shared with civil society during October 2024 (covering the local government 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2024 financial year). Subsequent reports will be published in October 2025 and October 2026 and shared civil society.

Milestones:
1. A formal process initiated to expand the scope of institutions whose financial data will be available on Vuleka-mali to also include Schedules 3A and 3C public entities as defined in Public Finance Management Act, 1999 3. A formal process initiated to include financial data for the local sphere of government as part of the Transformative Fiscal Transparency
3. A formal process initiated to include financial data for the local sphere of government as part of the Transformative Fiscal Transparency

Expected Outputs: Scope of institutions on Vuleka-mali portal expanded to include Schedules 3A and 3C public entities as defined in Public Finance Management Act, 1999
Financial data for the local sphere of government will be added to be part of the transformative fiscal transparency through the addition of the GoMuni portal Municipal money annual report published and shared with civil society during October 2024 (covering the local government 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2024 financial year) Municipal money annual report published and shared with civil society during October 2024 (covering the local government 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025 financial year)
Municipal money annual report published and shared with civil society during October 2024 (covering the local government 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026 financial year).