High expectations from vote holders of 2015 State Budget

The Minister of Finance's circular vis-à-vis innovations in the finance law better orientates actors in the budget execution chain.

Vote holders in the country now have what it takes to ensure an effective execution of the FCFA 3,746.6 billion 2015 State budget described variously as one tailored to tighten security and fast track socio-economic development.

Finance Minister, Alamine Ousmane Mey, in a circular spells out what all programme managers, authorising officers, contracting authorities, public accountants, financial controllers and all the other stakeholders of the execution chain of the Finance Laws, in general and public budgets in particular, need to do.

The orientations came against a backdrop of expressed desires for optimum mobilisation of both external and domestic revenue, the search for greater socio-economic efficiency of expenditure and the improvement of the quality of public spending with the promotion of a rigorous discipline in the execution of public finances as a driving force.

The Context

The 2015 Finance Law in itself is revolutionary. It is the last in a first triennial results-driven programme budget which went operational on January 1, 2013.

This requires that vote holders put all in place to execute already outlined projects so as to create room for others in the next phase (2016-2018).

Also, there are changes notably in the tax recovery. For example, there is a reduction in corporate tax from 35 to 30 per cent and an increase in the minimum discharge tax from 1 per cent to 2 per cent.

Also, no Value Added Tax are levied again on fees collected from travel agencies for international flights; no Value Added Tax refund made for transactions in cash; airport stamp duty hence collected by airlines, electronic tracking of Value Added Tax introduced for company invoicing operations and the taxpayer notification period extended from eight to 15 days. All these are to make tax collection payer-friendly for maximum output.

Systematic Controls Needed

Vote holders are hence obliged to constantly report on the execution of the State budget. The ministerial circular underlines that in order to facilitate systematic monitoring of consumption of the allocations of the various ministries for the accomplishment of their missions; each ministry is henceforth required to produce quarterly reports on the implementation of its budget.

These reports highlight, besides the main activities and operations carried out during the quarter, the levels of commitments while distinguishing those carried out in normal procedure of delegations of votes, liquidations during the period and physical implementation of operations of the Public Investment Budget. This is a performance-oriented tool.

Henceforth, at the end of each quarter, a systematic review of budget execution and performance of the administration is established in order to assess the levels of achievement of revenue and consumption of votes, assess the progress of set operations and the level of achievement of objectives and examine the problems and any difficulties encountered as well as propose appropriate corrective actions.