Benin report - Institut Africain de la Gouvernance

CHAPTER FOUR: ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT__________________________________________________________________________have helped to enhance government‟s performance in public financemanagement.441. The customs services have been reorganised in order to improveadministrative management and border controls, and to simplify customstariffs. The measures taken also include: (i) improvements to the computerisedmanagement of customs clearance operations (SYDNIA, ASYCUDA++); (ii)reducing custom duty exemptions and tax evasion; (iii) the automatic transferof manifests; (iv) reorganising and computerising several customs services(KRAKE, Cotonou Port); and (v) the General Directorate of Customs andExcise (DGDDI)/DGID computer connection.442. The CSAR assessment of the current situation in public funds management isbased solely on: (i) the frequency of reports and public monitoring of allgovernment revenues and expenditures; and (ii) the time given toparliamentarians to consider and approve the draft budget, and the number ofamendments to the draft budget adopted by Parliament.443. As regards fiscal decentralisation, the CSAR indicates that the council willhenceforth have its own budget. This will comprise recurrent revenue, capitalrevenue, recurrent expenditure and capital expenditure. The law defines therevenue spread of councils and the related expenditures to be borne by them(see the provisions of Sections 9-23 of Law 98-007 of 15 January 1999,defining the financial regulations of councils in the Republic of Benin).444. Paragraph D of Article 10 of Law 98-007 presents the revenue spread of thestate from which deductions must be made for the councils. The CSARindicates that, in order to ensure the efficiency of financial decentralisation forthe economic and socio-cultural promotion of councils, the provisions ofSection 57 of Law 98-007 instituted: cooperation between the councils, on theone hand, and between councils and national or foreign NGOs anddecentralised authorities of other states on the other; and financing assistanceto other local authorities. In this respect, a Local Authorities FinancingInstitution has been established.445. Transfer of financial resources to support the transfer of areas ofcompetence. In accordance with Law 97-029 of 15 January 1999, the councilhas its own areas of competence as a decentralised local authority.Furthermore, under the control of the responsible authority, it has otherresponsibilities that fall within the competence of the state. The council isresponsible for building, equipping and repairing government primary andnursery schools, as well as for maintaining these institutions. The governmenttransfers the required resources to the council for these functions. With regardto health, the council is responsible for building, equipping and repairingpublic health and social welfare centres, as well as public cultural, youth,sports and recreational facilities in the districts, villages or neighbourhoods.Again, the government transfers the necessary resources to the council.446. An assessment of the efficiency of this system indicates that the capacity oflocal authorities to manage (if necessary) tax resources and to plan and160