(Published in MTimes 03 May 2019)
We have on many occasions highlighted the colourable accounting or the fudging of the budget and debt figures. In quite diplomatic but firm ways that sound more like a reprimand, the IMF demands greater fiscal transparency towards general government reporting and the implementation of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) which “will bolster credibility”. This would suggest that we were therefore not that credible in our reporting. To be more credible, there is need for a full consolidation of the budget figures by including the special funds and other off-budget expenditures.
The IMF has carried out the consolidation exercise this time (it has a special table for borrowing not included in the budget figures) but it has bundled up the figures which it will surely correct later. One will recall our consolidated budget deficits of -3.8% of GDP for FY 2017-18 and 2018-19.
IMF is also critical of the project monitoring and coordination ministerial committees. These committees have failed to better grasp the complexities of project management -- including a proper evaluation of costs, funding options and risks and tendering procedures which are often the cause of most cost overruns and delays -- to ensure “deliverology” on our priority capital projects. In an indirect way, the IMF grudges them the jettisoning of the Programme Based Budgeting that would have delivered , if properly implemented, better outcomes than the dismal capital spending which has worsened from an average of 2.6% of GDP annually under the previous regime to less than 2% (1.7%,1.9%, and 1.7%), under the present government. There has been persistent substantial under-execution of investment spending at all levels of government. Public investment has been stagnating at around an annual average of Rs19.6 billion for the past there years.
IMF also calls for greater transparency in the public procurement process by clarifying the processes and outcomes—including those for special purpose entities. Such censures are inevitable when the government persists in putting their chums in charge of supposedly independent institutions. Just two weeks back we had noted the increasing number of cases that are being referred to the Independent Review Panel by unsuccessful bidders as well as the number of reviews of the decisions/awards of the Central Procurement Board. One therefore wonders whether the CPB can be referred to as a model for an efficient and effective public procurement in Mauritius.
