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

Strengthening Public Expenditure Management in Africa 431
personally from lax fiscal controls.”That study, covering in some detail 10 anglophone
African countries, concluded that the record of budget reform had been comparatively
good in Tanzania and Uganda, disappointing in Kenya and Zambia, and mixed in the
other six countries (Ethiopia, The Gambia, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, and Rwanda).
5. See the Transparency International Web site, http://www.transparency.org. Transparency
International’s Corruption Perceptions Index measures the degree to which
corruption is perceived to exist among a country’s public officials and politicians. It
draws on several surveys of opinions of business people and analysts, and it covers
159 countries (no reliable data are available for the other countries).
6. A survey of local business people revealed that, until the early 1990s,“informal commissions”
averaged between 3 and 5 percent of the contract price or value of works
and were stable. The same business people agree that today corruption in Burundi has
become pervasive, acute, and less predictable––with the “bribe tax” varying between
25 and 60 percent and increasing.
7. Even the United Nations Development Programme’s Automated System Customs
Data Administration, widely praised as good practice and now used in 80 countries,
has been highly effective in only one-third of the countries that use it. It has been
wholly or partly ineffective in the remainder.
8. The commission was highly successful and, over a few years in the 1990s, turned
Hong Kong, China, from one of the most corrupt administrations to one of the most
honest in Asia––second only to Singapore.
9. Major exceptions exist. “Stroke-of-the-pen” reforms abolishing key controls (for
example, on prices and exchange rates) can instantly eliminate a major opportunity
for corruption. Unifying dual exchange rates to the market rate, for example, removes
all possibilities of obtaining foreign exchange at the official rate only to sell it on the black
market at a higher rate––the single quickest and most effective form of corruption. Or,
as argued later in this chapter, sometimes enforcement is clearly the urgent priority.
Beyond the immediate effect, however, concerted action on all three fronts is necessary
if official corruption is to be reduced across the board in a sustainable manner.
10. Little difference in PEM performance appears to exist between anglophone and francophone
African countries in an HIPC context, with good and bad examples in both
groups (see IMF and World Bank 2002).
11. The Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability program is a partnership established
in December 2001, involving the World Bank, International Monetary Fund,
European Commission, Strategic Partnership with Africa, and several bilateral
donors––France, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Subsequent to the
formulation of the new approach, detailed indicators were developed that are currently
used for assessing expenditure management systems, including those in most African
countries. Although the assessments are useful, the need to minimize transaction costs
on the recipient government and its personnel must be kept in mind.
12. Observations similar to those in this section are made in Schiavo-Campo and
McFerson (forthcoming).
13. In Diamond and others (2006), the exit strategy recommendation is made in connection
with accounting computerization, but it is generally valid for all external assistance
to PEM. Although in most African countries, short-term targeted technical assistance
will continue to be useful in the foreseeable future, a clear end point for resident
expatriate assistance is especially necessary.