IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2001-211.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Systemic Weaknesses of Budget Management in Anglophone Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Mr. Ian Lienert
  • Mr. Feridoun Sarraf

Abstract

This paper examines the merits of the British budget management system that was inherited in Anglophone African countries and which has changed substantially in the United Kingdom since the 1960s. It considers whether the disappointing budgetary performance in Africa is due to weaknesses in the inherited British system, other external influences, or domestic developments. It finds that all three factors have played a role in the widespread problems with budget management systems. Reforms in institutional arrangements are needed, especially in budget execution. Technical reforms will be ineffective unless there are concomitant changes to enhance accountability, improve governance, and increase compliance.

Suggested Citation

  • Mr. Ian Lienert & Mr. Feridoun Sarraf, 2001. "Systemic Weaknesses of Budget Management in Anglophone Africa," IMF Working Papers 2001/211, International Monetary Fund.
  • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2001/211
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=15445
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard Clarke, 1978. "Public Expenditure, Management and Control," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-03738-4 edited by Alec Cairncross, December.
    2. Alberto F. Alesina & Roberto Perotti, 1999. "Budget Deficits and Budget Institutions," NBER Chapters, in: Fiscal Institutions and Fiscal Performance, pages 13-36, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Mr. Ian Lienert & Jitendra R. Modi, 1997. "A Decade of Civil Service Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa," IMF Working Papers 1997/179, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Bale, Malcolm & Dale, Tony, 1998. "Public Sector Reform in New Zealand and Its Relevance to Developing Countries," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 13(1), pages 103-121, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ben-Caleb Egbide & Godwyns Ade’ Agbude, 2013. "Budget Discipline in Nigeria: A Critical Evaluation of Military and Civilian Regimes," Acta Universitatis Danubius. OEconomica, Danubius University of Galati, issue 9(1), pages 91-101, February.
    2. Lassou, Philippe Jacques Codjo & Hopper, Trevor, 2016. "Government accounting reform in an ex-French African colony: The political economy of neocolonialism," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 39-57.
    3. Mr. Stephan Danninger & Ms. Annette J Kyobe & Mr. M. Cangiano, 2005. "The Political Economy of Revenue-Forecasting Experience From Low-Income Countries," IMF Working Papers 2005/002, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Lassou, Philippe J.C. & Hopper, Trevor & Tsamenyi, Mathew & Murinde, Victor, 2019. "Varieties of neo-colonialism: Government accounting reforms in Anglophone and Francophone Africa – Benin and Ghana compared," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    5. International Monetary Fund, 2006. "Selected African Countries: IMF Technical Assistance Evaluation: Public Expenditure Management Reform," IMF Staff Country Reports 2006/067, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Mr. Ian Lienert, 2003. "A Comparison Between Two Public Expenditure Management Systems in Africa," IMF Working Papers 2003/002, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Mr. Stephan Danninger, 2005. "Revenue Forecasts as Performance Targets," IMF Working Papers 2005/014, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Babacar Sarr, 2016. "What Are the Drivers of Fiscal Performance Gaps between Anglophone and Francophone Africa? A Blinder–Oaxaca Decomposition," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 84(1), pages 40-62, March.
    9. Ms. Annette J Kyobe & Mr. Stephan Danninger, 2005. "Revenue Forecasting—How is it done? Results from a Survey of Low-Income Countries," IMF Working Papers 2005/024, International Monetary Fund.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:prg:jnlcfu:v:2022:y:2022:i:1:id:572 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Marco BUTI & Daniele FRANCO & Hedwig ONGENA, 1997. "Budgeetary Policies during Recessions : Retrospective Application of the Stability and Growth Pact” to the Post-War Period," Discussion Papers (REL - Recherches Economiques de Louvain) 1997041, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    3. von Hagen, Jürgen & Strauch, Rolf R., 2001. "German public finances: Recent experiences and future challenges," ZEI Working Papers B 13-2001, University of Bonn, ZEI - Center for European Integration Studies.
    4. Michał Mackiewicz, 2006. "Przyczyny deficytu finansów publicznych w świetle nowej ekonomii politycznej," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 3, pages 1-22.
    5. Bedri Peci, 2016. "Fiscal Transparency In Theory And Practice: The Case Of Kosovo," International Journal of Business and Management, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences, vol. 4(4), pages 78-91, November.
    6. HoeJeong Kim & Hadi Salehi Esfahani, 2002. "Hiding Public Debt," Working Papers 0203, Economic Research Forum, revised 10 Jan 2002.
    7. Dilla, Diana, 2017. "Staatsverschuldung und Verschuldungsmentalität [Public Debt and Debt Mentality]," MPRA Paper 79432, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1999. "The size and scope of government:: Comparative politics with rational politicians," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(4-6), pages 699-735, April.
    9. Fabio Canova & Evi Pappa, 2006. "Does It Cost to Be Virtuous? The Macroeconomic Effects of Fiscal Constraints," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2004, pages 327-370, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Zvi Hercowitz & Michel Strawczynski, 1998. "On The Cyclical Bias In Government Spending," Bank of Israel Working Papers 1998.06, Bank of Israel.
    11. Nadeem Ul Haque, 1998. "Issues in the Designing of Public Sector Reform," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 37(4), pages 299-327.
    12. Ehrhart, Karl-Martin & Gardner, Roy & von Hagen, Jurgen & Keser, Claudia, 2007. "Budget processes: Theory and experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 279-295, May.
    13. Jiajing Sun & Michael Cole & Zhiyuan Huang & Shouyang Wang, 2019. "Chinese leadership: Provincial perspectives on promotion and performance," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 37(4), pages 750-772, June.
    14. Andrew Feltenstein & Nour Abdul-Razzak & Jeffrey Condon & Biplab Kumar Datta, 2015. "Tax Evasion, the Provision of Public Infrastructure and Growth: A General Equilibrium Approach to Two Very Different Countries, Egypt and Mauritius," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 24(suppl_2), pages 43-72.
    15. Philip Arestis & Andrea Cipollini & Bassam Fattouh, 2004. "Threshold Effects in the U.S. Budget Deficit," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 42(2), pages 214-222, April.
    16. Willy McCourt, 2001. "The New Public Selection? Anti-corruption, psychometric selection and the new public management in Nepal," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(3), pages 325-343, September.
    17. Fatas, Antonio & Mihov, Ilian, 2006. "The macroeconomic effects of fiscal rules in the US states," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 101-117, January.
    18. Ugo Panizza, 2004. "Decentralising the public sector: What Drives Fiscal Decentralisation?," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 2(01), pages 21-25, October.
    19. Matthew Lockwood, 2005. "Will a Marshall Plan for Africa make poverty history?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(6), pages 775-789.
    20. Xavier Debrun & Tidiane Kinda, 2017. "Strengthening Post‐Crisis Fiscal Credibility: Fiscal Councils on the Rise – A New Dataset," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 38, pages 667-700, December.
    21. Beate Jochimsen & Robert Nuscheler, 2011. "The political economy of the German Lander deficits: weak governments meet strong finance ministers," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(19), pages 2399-2415.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2001/211. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.