Public Sector Governance and Accountability Series: Budgeting and ...

Budget Execution 285
The distribution of responsibilities in carrying out these regularity
controls is discussed later, but whatever agency is responsible for carrying
out these basic controls, they must always be carried out.
The commitment control is particularly important because it can
prevent blatant cases of misuse of appropriations, overspending, and
irregularities. In the African anglophone budget systems, commitments
are, in principle, monitored by spending units, but data on commitments are
not systematically available at the ministry of finance level. To address
these weaknesses, some anglophone countries are implementing a commitment
control system with the support of the IMF (see box 9.1). However,
results are still uneven (see box 9.2). As discussed later, the issues
related to commitment control are of a different nature in francophone
budget systems.
BOX 9.1 The IMF-Proposed Approach to Commitment Controls
in Anglophone Budget Systems
The key objective of commitment control is to require spending ministries to
focus on controlling the initial incurrence of liabilities rather than the subsequent
cash payments.
The key elements of a commitment control system are as follows:
Each line ministry sends to the ministry of finance a quarterly expenditure
plan supported by projected monthly cash requirements. On the
basis of annual and quarterly cash plans, the ministry of finance issues
quarterly expenditure ceilings, along with the projected amounts of
monthly cash release to line ministries, before the beginning of each
quarter.
The line ministries must limit the commitments to the level of quarterly
expenditure ceilings and keep planned payments within monthly cash
release.
The line ministries prepare a monthly report on outstanding commitments
and unpaid bills and submit it to the ministry of finance.
Each line ministry should have a commitment control officer (usually the
controlling or accounting officer) who is responsible for managing the
system.
Detailed procedures for approval of commitments, payment, and
accounting are issued. The onus is on the commitment control officer to
ensure that commitments entered into are consistent with the quarterly
ceilings—without incurring any payment arrears.
Source: IMF 2006a.