Chapter four: Economic governance and management This can result in a three to four months’ delay from the acceptance of the budget. Other factors causing delays in project implementation include the ineffective monitoring of project implementation and enforcement of contract terms, including project quality and time schedules. Government has to address the issue of budget and project implementation within the context of the MTEF, which facilitates the medium-term planning of capital activities, instead of annual plans. Donor and other assistance related to capital expenditure should be aligned to the MTEF. It is also necessary to improve project cycle management to ensure that projects are implemented in a timely manner and contracts are enforced so that the contractors who fall behind agreed timelines are penalised. More important, project preparation should not be tied to the annual budget process. Source: CRM findings based on data provided by the MoFDP. 448. The CRM established that public finance management and accountability often fail to adhere to institutional requirements. Ministries, for example, are legally required to present their complete accounts regularly for auditing by the auditor general, and all audited reports should be tabled before Parliament for approval and be made available for public inspection. However, the CRM established that ministries are often unable to submit timely accounts for auditing. Many stakeholders expressed concern about the lack of political will on the part of Parliament and the government to force ministries to meet their legal obligations. 449. Currently, fiscal decentralisation is limited and the country needs to decentralise revenue collection and service delivery in order to improve efficiency, transparency and accountability. However, while the Local Government Act and its regulations empower them to mobilise revenue from local sources, other laws restrict these powers to the MoFDP. Lesotho has, therefore, to harmonise these regulations to make meaningful progress, especially in the area of fiscal decentralisation. Sources for increased revenue for local authorities include taxation and user fees on houses; bus stops; water; animals; toll gates; stalls; and shared company and income tax. However, decentralisation should be completed so that locally collected revenue is used locally. All relevant departments, like health and education, should be decentralised. 450. Effective decentralisation requires clear terms of reference for chiefs and elected councillors. They also need to be educated about their areas of responsibility and authority in order to avoid conflict. Furthermore, stakeholders at district level expressed concern about the election of uneducated councillors who are not able to deliver. Government should therefore set rules about minimum educational qualifications for candidates who want to serve as councillors. 451. The district administrator coordinates work at district level and is not part of local government. He or she liaises with the principal secretaries of agriculture, education, home affairs, sport and finance, among others, that are represented at district level. However, the district administrator has no consolidated plan and line ministries are not willing to decentralise. Therefore, implementation is actually centralised. While district administrators participate in preparing recurrent expenditure bids by line ministries, they have no role in preparing capital expenditure plans. 452. While local authorities submit regular financial reports to line ministries on relevant expenditure items, neither the MoFDP nor the MoLG maintains consolidated budget reports for individual 125