ABSTRACT
It is a good bet to predict that the number of public financial systems vary with the number of countries that exist globally. Broadly speaking, some countries have designed their public financial systems in accordance with the British model while others, the American. There are still some countries whose systems display similarities with the old Soviet model of central planning. Yet other financial systems exhibit nuances of the Dutch, French and Portuguese colonialist models. Accordingly, the features of these systems differ widely from each other. Take budget timetables as an example. Premchand explains that budgetary timetables that follow the British system are generally short ‘‘in that it takes about sixteen months before the start of the fiscal year for the budget to be prepared . . . supplementary budgets are also traditionally submitted thrice during the year. In the US-based
systems, the long lead time contributes to unrealistic budget estimates.’’ (Premchand, 1999).
