ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the understanding of public budgeting on the African continent by investigating the country on its southernmost tip, South Africa. It contextualizes financial management and budgeting in South Africa's system of government. The chapter explores the politics of budgeting and the South African budgeting architecture and associated key actors. It accentuates budget reforms, the budget cycle, and the country's legislative framework. The chapter investigates revenue sources as well as the frameworks and methods of budgeting. South Africa has high levels of poverty, inequality and unemployment. The Medium Term Budget Policy Statement of 2014, states that "national, provincial and local government will need to continue identifying savings and improving the way they spend money. The fiscal analysis provides assessment of the budget utilized; the level of performance of service delivery cannot be measured in financial terms. This is an area of continuous fiscal assessment for sustaining social-economic development in South Africa.
