Summary assessment
 
This public expenditure and financial accountability (PEFA) assessment was initiated and sponsored by the National Treasury. The current PEFA has been undertaken with the formal agreement and active support of the provincial government of Limpopo. The assessment adopts the methodology of the public financial management performance measurement framework (PFM-PMF) issued by the PEFA multi-donor programme in June 2005, revised in 2011, and subsequently adapted to sub-national governments (2013). The approach is based upon evidenced, demonstrated public financial management (PFM) systems, procedures and practices in the Province of Limpopo at the time of the assessment, as determined through direct interviews with provincial government officials and the review of official documents and reports.
 
The purpose of this PFM performance report is to present the results on the status of the public financial management systems of the provincial government of Limpopo. The TOR identifies the main objective of this PEFA assessment as:  Establishing a baseline for future monitoring of progress in financial management performance and for informing the financial management capacity and maturity model (FMCMM) and donors; and  Feeding future work on improving financial management in provinces.
 
The overall assessment takes a view of the province as a whole through the Provincial Treasury (PT). The PT is responsible for preparing the provincial budgets and enforcing uniform treasury norms as prescribed by the National Treasury, deriving its powers through the PFMA (section 18) and thus more relevant for the overall provincial view. The assessment involved review of documents, mainly from the National and Provincial Treasury. Further to that a series of interviews were held with the relevant departments in conjunction with the Provincial Treasury.
 
The main focus of the Limpopo assessment is based on the five departments namely:  The Provincial Treasury;  The Department of Health;  The Department of Education;  The Department of Roads and Transport; and  The Department of Public Works
 
A preliminary draft report was presented to the Provincial Treasury on 13 November 2013 for comments. Subsequently a revised draft report was made available on 10 January 2014. A workshop with the National and Provincial Treasuries took place on 15 January 2014 to take stock of further comments and agree on future steps to finalise the report. This final report is submitted to the National and Provincial Treasuries and takes into account comments and suggestions presented at the workshop, as well as final comments in writing by Provincial Treasury received subsequently.
 
This assessment is not designed to comment on any aspects of specific fiscal or expenditure policy. It has not taken into account considerations of capacity, except to the degree implicit in the capacity to successfully carry out the assessed PFM procedures. It is important to underscore that the objective of the assessment has not been to evaluate and score the performance of institutions or any PFM offices or officials, but rather to assess the capacity of the PFM systems themselves to support sound fiscal policy and financial management.1

Note by PEFA Secretariat: The 2014 PEFA South Africa - Free State Province Assessment had not been subject to PEFA Secretariat review and quality assurance process