BY SIFISO NHLABATSI
EZULWINI – Public Accounts Committees (PACs) have been urged to move beyond checking whether government complied with financial procedures and instead establish whether public spending actually improves the lives of citizens.
Senate President Lindiwe Dlamini said this was critical as African parliaments sought to strengthen oversight and ensure that government expenditure translated into tangible public benefits.
The Senate President was speaking during the official opening of the Southern Africa Organisation of Public Accounts Committees (SADCOPAC) 18th Conference and 22nd Annual General Meeting at Happy Valley Hotel in Ezulwini.
She identified the conference theme, “Did the Citizens Benefit? Shifting PAC Oversight from Compliance Checklist to Outcome Accountability”, as one of the issues that strongly resonated with current continental governance priorities.
Dlamini said traditional auditing remained important because it ensured compliance with laws, procurement regulations and established financial procedures.
However, she warned that compliance on paper did not necessarily mean that citizens had received value from government expenditure.
“Technical compliance alone does not guarantee public value,” she said.
She illustrated this with the example of a community clinic that could be completed within the approved budget and timeframe but remain non-functional because it was inaccessible to communities or lacked adequate staffing.
Dlamini said such a project could technically pass aspects of an audit while failing in its fundamental purpose of serving the public.
She therefore called on PACs to change the way they assess government expenditure by looking beyond documentation and financial compliance to the actual outcomes of projects and programmes.
According to Dlamini, parliamentary oversight should establish whether money allocated for public services resulted in the intended improvements on the ground.
She urged PAC members to make greater use of physical site visits and engagements with communities when examining government projects.
Such interventions, she said, would enable oversight committees to establish whether projects were functioning and whether the intended beneficiaries were actually receiving the services for which public funds had been allocated.
Dlamini said PACs should interrogate the real impact of government spending rather than simply determining whether prescribed procedures had been followed.
She argued that the ultimate test of public expenditure should be whether it delivered meaningful and transformational benefits to citizens.
The Senate President said this approach would require parliamentarians to become more focused on outcomes and service delivery when scrutinising government accounts.
She said public funds belonged to citizens and therefore had to be subjected to scrutiny to ensure that expenditure served the national interest.
Dlamini also linked effective oversight to public confidence in democratic institutions, saying transparency in government spending strengthened decision-making and helped deter corruption.
She said controlling officers had a legal and ethical responsibility to provide transparent financial accounts showing how public resources had been utilised.
The call came as parliamentarians and representatives of Supreme Audit Institutions from across the region gathered in Eswatini for the three-day SADCOPAC conference.
Dlamini urged delegates to use the gathering to formulate practical resolutions that would strengthen public financial oversight across Africa.
She said the conference provided an opportunity for PAC members to learn from one another and develop approaches that could improve accountability in their respective countries.
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