Mpumalanga municipalities are ready with mSCOA
The Provincial Treasury has concluded the process of assessments to establish the state of readiness in municipalities to implement the Regulation on municipal Standard Chart of Accounts, commonly referred to as the “mSCOA”.
The final assessment was done through the Chief Financial Officer’s forum attended by all Mpumalanga’s municipal officials last month. This is one of the many initiatives undertaken by the Provincial Treasury to strengthen and support municipalities’ capacity and capability to fulfil their Constitutional obligation of service delivery.
The implementation of mSCOA will result in the consistent application of the municipal ‘accountability cycle’ from planning, budgeting, implementation, monitoring and reporting and ultimately improved service delivery.
“Last year we committed to supporting municipalities to move towards a uniform system of recording of budgets,” said MEC for Finance, Economic Development and Tourism, Mr Sikhumbuzo Kholwane.
“We have made great progress in preparing municipalities to comply with the requirements for implementation of the mSCOA by the 1st of July 2017.”
The mSCOA is part of the National Treasury’s ongoing budget and reporting reforms aimed at improving financial reporting. With effect from 1 July 2017, all municipalities will have to capture all their financial transactions against a predefined classification framework, which will result in uniformity of line items in terms of revenue, expenditure, assets and liabilities.
These financial reforms have improved the ability of stakeholders such as municipal councillors and management to make decisions and have empowered the general public to enable them to hold municipalities to account.
The mSCOA has been formulated on the design principles that have been implemented at national and provincial level. The improvement in overall aggregated government reporting is expected to lead to policy formulation that is more informed over time.
“We will provide hands - on support to municipalities to conform to this policy requirement for a single window of budgeting and accounting in the government,” added MEC Kholwane.
For more inquiries contact
Letshela Jonas
Tel: 013 766 4323
Cell: 079 5000 154
Email: lajonas@mpg.gov.za
