Abstract
The paradox around performance in the South African municipalities is undoubtedly exposed by the released reports of the Auditor-General for 2012/13 and Statistics South Africa’s Non-Financial Census of Municipalities, 2013. On the analyses of these reports, it became clear that municipalities could achieve more if stringent measures could be put in place and implemented to ensure that resources are used efficiently and effectively. To that effect, this article argues that monitoring and evaluation (M&E) policy framework should be fully implemented in South African municipalities. This argument emanates from the fact that exorbitant amounts are incurred on fruitless and wasteful expenditure in municipalities. This article then presents a compelling case through which maximisation of expenditure prioritisation in municipalities is warranted. To investigate the concept of expenditure prioritisation, as a principle that municipalities should espouse, the study embarks on literature review as a method deemed suitable to explore the value of evaluation as budgeting tool for South African municipalities. The findings to this investigation, recommended that on-going or process evaluation should be more useful to inform budget decision makers in the provincial and national governments about the required capacity interventions, which could assist to deal with financial weaknesses in municipalities.
Highlights
The paradox around performance in South African municipalities is undoubtedly exposed by recently released reports of the Auditor-General for 2012/13 and Statistics South Africa’s Non-Financial Census of Municipalities 2013 (2014)
The four principal sources of M&E are contained in the Constitution, 1996, Government-wide Monitoring and Evaluation (GWM&E), Framework for Managing Programme Performance Information (FMPPI), and National Evaluation Policy Framework, which are discussed below
It became clear that these reports show the paradox that is existing in terms of performance in South African municipalities
Summary
The paradox around performance in South African municipalities is undoubtedly exposed by recently released reports of the Auditor-General for 2012/13 and Statistics South Africa’s Non-Financial Census of Municipalities 2013 (2014). The Statistics South Africa’s (2014) report on the Non-Financial Census of Municipalities 2013, indicates that municipalities are making strides towards service delivery in South Africa. It is reported that the number of households that are using the bucket system have increased from 73 413 in 2009 to 99 102 in 2013 (Mbanjwa, 2014) When one analyses these reports, it becomes clear that municipalities could achieve more if stringent measures could be introduced and implemented to ensure that resources are used efficiently and effectively. According to Treasury (2000:40), fruitless and wasteful expenditure is expenditure made in vain, which could have been avoided had reasonable care been taken This presents a compelling case through which maximisation of expenditure prioritisation in municipalities must be sought. It is clear that the purposes of evaluation and monitoring differ, even though they supplement each other (Cloete & De Coning, 2011:197; Ijeoma, 2010:349-350)
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