Under the leadership of the overall project manager and in close cooperation with Expertise France’s Headquarter, the selected Expert will lead the implementation of activities of the intervention area 4 “Budget and Expenditure Management Support”.

Given the current public finance management challenges at the City Councils, the intervention area 4 “Budget and Expenditure Management Support” seeks to improve internal Public Financial Management processes and systems at each of the four City Councils and to improve interaction with the National Local Government Finance Committee (NLGFC) and the Ministry of Local Government Unity & Culture (MOLGUC). This intervention area will focus, amongst others, on eight overall priority topics:  

·         assess, analyse, identify gaps and recommend improvements to financial procedures and systems;

·         improving revenue and expenditure estimates/forecasts;

·         strengthening integration of planning and budgeting;

·         completing an independent functional review;

·         strengthening the control, inventory and management of assets and liabilities;

·         strengthening internal control (i.e., in both manual and IFMIS environments) and audit;

·         improving procurement outcomes, and value of City Council investments; and

·         improving financial reporting, documentation and processes.

In addition to the eight priority topics outlined above, ensuring that anti-corruption measures are considered when strengthening budget and expenditure management support is crucial. This includes measures such as increasing transparency and accountability in financial reporting, documentation, and processes and improving procurement outcomes to prevent fraudulent activity.

With the projected increased revenues resulting from the revenue mobilization and management activities, the Finance Departments of the City Councils will need to develop and adopt best practices to efficiently and effectively utilize this additional revenue to improve service delivery, particularly in land administration and planning, while also getting the greatest impact or response from property owners. Targeting service delivery will be on those services that are of highest value to taxpayers and society and are of high visibility, so that taxpayers and society can quickly associate the increased tax collection with a visible increase in services provided. The direct link between increased revenue and the use of these revenues for the provision of public services is the purpose of the ‘public services fund (PSF)’ that each city will establish as a Condition Precedent of the Compact. In this regard, the budget and expenditure management support Task is intended to work with the City Councils to identify, develop and deploy the policies, procedures and systems needed to support the effective functioning of the PSF.

In this Task the Consultant will help the City Councils develop and implement interventions that put in-place Public Expenditure Management Practice (PEM) approaches in the four City Councils. The Consultant will assess current systems, processes and procedures, identify gaps, develop recommendations and facilitate adoption of approaches. These PEM approaches will focus on three key objectives: (i) achieving Aggregate Fiscal Discipline - stay within resource limits over the full budgetary period; (ii) ability to track Operational Performance – deliver services efficiently, effectively and transparently; and (iii) ensuring Resource Allocation in Conformity with Government Policy Objectives – allocate budget to services that best satisfy the public need.

Financial management systems are expected to be developed to integrate the newly developed Property Information Management System (PIMS) with the Government of Malawi’s public financial management system (IFMIS) and the revenue management systems (RMS) currently used by the City Councils. New Public Financial Management (PFM) systems are to be developed to allow the City Councils to measure operational performance in terms of efficiency of resources used to produce services, in particular in land management and City Rates assessments, effectiveness of the result of expenditures and accurately measure and monitor the cost of providing services. These systems will also allow the City Councils to readily ascertain what amount of resources are being spent on operational budget programs and individual services within these programs and within the PSF, as well as tracking whether the department providing the services remains within allocated budget. The systems will also need to have the capability to produce department and service-specific reports so that City Council management and the public can scrutinize the use of public finances and the budget and expenditure process. This will increase transparency, enhance the fiscal credibility of the City Councils, and build public confidence in the City Rates, budgeting and overall public finance process.

As with the PIMS above, all investment in compact-funded technology will be subject to viability and sustainability analysis, to ensure investment in levels and types of technology that is appropriate to the infrastructure and user conditions and likely to see sustained use. 

Base period (12 months)

Optional Period (24 months)