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

528 Alta Fölscher
responsible for recording transactions in the South African system, will apply
the frameworks well. A key feature of the South African reforms has been
implementation support for spending departments, including working with
departments to recode their transaction base correctly and providing training
programs to financial management personnel (see table 15.1).
The new South African classification system is aimed at improving
financial information for budget management and accountability purposes.
The structure and presentation are fully compatible with, and can be converted
easily to, the Government Finance Statistics Manual (IMF 2001)
format (because the same classification base is used at a high level of
detail). However, the South African system avoids the use of unclear terms
such as other and miscellaneous, includes more detail on various transfer
categories, and labels items more clearly.
Improvement of Budget Management for Service Delivery
The earlier phases of the South African reforms emphasized planning better
for the financing of new policies and priorities and, ultimately, improved
service delivery. The reform vision recognized from the start, however, that
planning and budgeting need to be integrated with monitoring service delivery
performance to strengthen the link between the services that departments
provide and the benefits and costs of those services. Performance
measures were to give effect to the emphasis on improved transparency and
TABLE 15.1
Sequence
Implementation of Classification Reforms
Reform
1998 Reclassification of existing expenditure items in line with the
Government Finance Statistics Manual for compliance and
International Monetary Fund data dissemination standards;
capacity building
1999 Modernization of accounts to align with international best
practices; capacity building
1999–2000 New economic classification based on the Government Finance
Statistics Manual and rollout from national budget to
provincial budgets; capacity building
2000–04 Development and implementation of the standard chart of
accounts to support the effectiveness of the new economic
format; capacity building
2005–present Rationalization and refinement; capacity building
Source: Schoch and others 2006.