Programme budgeting for South African local authorities
Date
2015-02-13
Authors
Cowden, John Williams
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Abstract
The scarcity of resources relative to social wants leads
to the allocation function of economics, which in the private
sector of the economy is accomplished through a
market mechanism and in the public sector by means of government
budgeting. One noteworthy feature in the history
of public finance up to the twentieth century was its
indifference to public expenditure problems in general and
budgetary choice in particular. This factor, together
with a growing popular demand for probity in public spending,
led to the entrenchment of rigorous classification
principles which satisfied that needs of accountability yet
failed to provide a satisfactory framework for decision making
and economic analysis.