Review of Annual Reporting Process
When a government is voted into office, an inevitable contract of accountability is entered into between government and the citizens it serves. It is therefore incumbent on government to inform the citizens and legislatures on what they intend to achieve by way of pre-determined objectives.

These pre-determined objective are reflected in:
· Performance agreements between a Minister/MEC and the head of the department;
· Service delivery improvement programmes
· Strategic plans; and
· Estimates of expenditure

The accountability process culminates with the publishing of the annual report, which serves to inform the citizens of the country and its legislatures as to what progress Government has made in the achievement of its objectives. Accounting officers are required to compile annual reports for the institutions that they are responsible for and these annual reports must fairly represent their institution's performance and financial position for a particular fiscal year. The information contained in the annual report should reflect the institution's achievements in relation to the objectives as set out in year 1 of the institution's strategic plan and annual budget for the financial year in question.

The executive authority must critically assess this annual report, which must be presented to the Provincial Legislature. It is therefore imperative that departments and entities submit their annual reports to its executive, accompanied by a Cabinet memorandum summarizing the performance and outputs of that department or entity, and the corrective steps it intends to take to deal with any adverse audit or poor performance outcomes.

Annual Reports consist of -
Part 1: General Information
Part 2: Programme Performance
Part 3: Report of the Audit Committee
Part 4: Annual Financial Statements
Part 5: Human Resource Management

Statutory requirements
The annual reports of Provincial departments need to comply with the specific statutory requirements as set out in the set following:

· Public Finance management Act (PFMA), 1999 (Act No. 1 of 1999)
· Treasury Regulations (TR) May 2005
· Division of Revenue Act, (DORA), 2005 (Act No 5 of 2005)

Key Time-lines
The financial year of departments close on 31 March of every year.
Annual reports, including audited financial statements are tabled in the Provincial Legislature on 30 September.
The speaker makes an announcement on the tabling of committee report dates at his/her discretion.

Closing the accountability loop by exercising legislative oversight of service delivery
The Provincial Budget that is approved at the START of the financial year includes -
· Forward-looking five year Strategic Plans and one year Business Plans
· A policy approval process where trade-offs are made given scarce resources
· EXCO proposes, Legislature approves
· Measurable objectives and performance targets

Annual report tabled after END of financial year
· Backward-looking and report on past performance

In-year management reports (monthly for management, quarterly for legislature)
· Allows management to be pro-active in solving challenges as and when they are identified
· Allows executive and legislature to deal with challenges if management is not doing so

The Constitution and Oversight
· Section 114(2) requires that the provincial legislatures:
"must provide for mechanisms to ensure that all provincial organs of state in the province are accountable to it; and to maintain oversight of the exercise of provincial executive authority in the province, including the implementation of legislation; and any provincial organ of state"

· Section 133(3)(b) requires that:
"Members of Executive Council of a province must provide the Legislature with full and regular reports concerning matters under their control"

Why is oversight role of legislature so important?
· Legislature is the first and last point of the accountability cycle
· Legislature involvement in-budget process, and setting priorities
· If legislature does not provide constructive oversight, the chain of responsibility will not be as strong
· Executive should take oversight responsibility for performance
· Officials should take primary responsibility
· If management processes fail in the chain, than the legislature should be able to act even when all else fails