Strengthening Financial Management and Consequence Management for the Municipal Finance Management Act

The overall objective of the project was to strengthen governance and accountability at local government level through the development of a comprehensive practical consequence management framework. The specific objective was to develop consequence management and accountability framework document and empowering the political and administrative leadership within municipalities and municipal entities to implement consequence management.

Whilst the Municipal Regulations on Financial Misconduct Procedures and Criminal Proceedings provided a legal framework that enabled the implementation of consequence management, it had become clear that practical implementation remained a huge challenge, hence the low levels of implementation to date. Through the development and issuance of the consequence management and accountability framework, these municipal regulations mentioned above could have been adapted and adopted by municipalities and supporting training materials assisted municipalities and municipal entities with implementation.

Furthermore, the conversion of the framework into the learning material enabled capacity building, training and development for officials tasked with ensuring the implementation of consequence management. This was done through fostering closer working relationship with institutions of higher learning and other relevant service providers. This aligned to government’s overall strategic objective as outlined in presidential announcements which talked to an effective, efficient and accountable local government. This also ensured that there is a clear framework that assisted senior municipal officials to ensure that officials are held accountable. This ensured a significant reduction in unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure at local government level.