South Africa KwaZulu Natal Province 2014

Summary assessment
 
 
This public expenditure and financial accountability (PEFA) assessment was initiated and sponsored by the National Treasury (NT) of South Africa. It has been undertaken with the formal agreement and active support of the provincial government of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). 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 and revised in 2011, and adapted to sub-national governments (SNGs). The approach is based upon evidenced, demonstrated public financial management (PFM) systems, procedures and practices in KZN at the time of the assessment, as determined through direct interviews with government officials and the perusal of official documents and reports. Evidence from independent sources outside the government, such as the media and people not involved in the state, was collected whenever possible.
 
The purpose of the PFM performance report is to assess the current status of the provincial government’s PFM system. The terms of reference (TOR) identify the main objectives of the four sub-national PEFA assessments 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  The four assessments are to be conducted in 2013. This working draft report is submitted to the Provincial Treasury (PT) to support the ongoing analysis and data collection. A draft report will be submitted on 29 November 2013 to initiate the review process. A workshop with NT is planned for January 2014 to take stock of comments and finalise the report.
 
In 2008, a PEFA assessment of the central level was conducted and serves as a reference for the national PFM systems and the description and performance of practices.
 
This assessment is not designed to comment on any aspects of specific fiscal or expenditure policy and has been careful not to do so. It has not taken into account considerations of capacity, except to the degree implicit in the capacity to carry out the assessed PFM procedures. It is important also 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 to support sound fiscal policy and financial management.
 
In essence, this assessment provides a measure of whether the main conditions necessary for delivering sound PFM practice have been met, rather than providing an insight into all of the sufficient conditions necessary to conclude that sound PFM is being carried out. For example, while it assesses whether the PFM systems provide a sound framework for assessing fiscal risk arising from public enterprise activity, it makes no comment as to what authorities do or should do in response to the information provided by the fiscal risk assessment. Such comment would be beyond the scope of a PEFA assessment.

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