Albania Tropoja Municipality 2017

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Data available for 2013, 2014 and 2015 does not enable calculation of outturn ratios.

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No scoring is applied; as outturn results for the three years are not comparable and the data incomplete.

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No scoring is applied; as outturn results for the three years are not comparable and the data incomplete.

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Actual expenditure charged to the contingency/reserve budget lines is close to zero in all three years i.e. far below an average of 3% of the original approved budget total.

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None of the data for the three fiscal years represents the new municipality. Without complete data for 2015 this dimension cannot be rated.

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Data for the three fiscal years do not represent the new municipality, and data for FY2015 is incomplete. However, an assessment for the pre-TAR municipality only would clearly lead to a D score, irrespective of the findings for FY2015, as two years are well above 15%.

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Budget formulation, execution and reporting use a combination of program, administrative and economic classification, but the program classification appears in different versions in different documents that cannot easily be reconciled or bridged to GFS sub-functional classification

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None of the requirements for the four basic elements are fulfilled. And none of the requirements for the relevant additional elements are fulfilled.

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No expenditure was identified which was unreported in the municipality’s budget execution and annual financial reports.

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No revenue was identified which was unreported in the municipality’s budget execution and annual financial reports.

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No extra-budgetary units were identified under Tropoja Municipality.

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Not applicable as there is no tier of government below municipalities.

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Not applicable as there is no tier of government below municipalities.

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Information is available annually on program policies and activities to be performed by the majority of the programs, but is of very general nature without quantitative indicators of outputs or outcomes and could not be related to budget allocations. It is also not clear to what extent the information is published.

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Information is not published on the activities performed for the majority of public service programs and departments.

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No information has been collected systematically about resources received by service delivery units during the last three (or any one) fiscal year.

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Evaluations of the efficiency or effectiveness of public service delivery have been carried out for any of the programs or departments during the last three years.

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Evaluations of the efficiency or effectiveness of public service delivery have been carried out for any of the programs or departments during the last three years.

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The Municipal government has not officially received any financial reports from the Water Supply Company for 2015.

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Not applicable, as there is no level of government below the municipality.

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No contingent liabilities are identified..

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Economic analyses are conducted to assess some major investment projects funded by donors.

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Prior to their inclusion in the budget, most major investment projects with identified funding are prioritized internally by the Urban Planning Department. However, the selection is not done on the basis of standard or clearly defined criteria.

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Projections of the total capital cost of major investment projects, together with the capital costs for the forthcoming budget year, are not included in the budget documents. Operation and maintenance costs are not estimated and reported.

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The physical progress and capital costs of major investment projects is monitored and reported to the Council on annual basis.

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The municipality does not maintain a record of its holdings and receivables in major financial asset categories.

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Fixed asset register exists but is operating suboptimally, with only partial information collected so far on their usage, age, location, and net value.

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Partial information is included in annual financial reports and submitted to the local council, which is not disclosed to the public. In addition, no information about the assets planned to be disposed of is presented in the budget documents.

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The Municipality and the former communes have no formal debt or guarantees to manage.

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The municipality is allowed to borrow, by all loans must obtain prior approval by MOF. Loans, depending on the amount, are also approved by either the Parliament or the local council. Legislation sets out clearly the authority to borrow and the procedures to be followed.

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This dimension is not applicable as such a strategy does not apply to a municipality.

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Macroeconomic forecasting is not applicable to municipalities.

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The municipality has not prepared multi-year forecasts for any fiscal parameters. Forecasts of revenue, expenditure and budget balance are done for the coming budget year only

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Not applicable to municipalities.

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Estimates of the impact of revenue and expenditure policy changes have taken place but are exceptional and have not been done on a multi-year basis during the last three fiscal years

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The municipality does not have an overall fiscal strategy.

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No reporting can be done against a fiscal strategy as such a strategy does not exist.

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Three year estimates of expenditure are not being prepared.

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No expenditure ceilings have been prepared.

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There are no strategic medium-term development plans on which to base budget priorities and expenditure estimates.

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As no medium-term expenditure budget has been undertaken in any of the past four years, this dimension is not relevant.

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No budget calendar has been prepared for the municipality’s budget preparation process in 2015 or any prior years, beyond what relates to the interaction between the municipality and the state budgets as per national legislation.

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No instructions for the preparation of the annual budget FY2016 (or any prior years) have been issued by the Municipality

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In none of the last three years has the annual budget proposal been submitted to the Council at least a month before the start of the budget year.

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The Council’s review covers fiscal policies and revenue/expenditure aggregates for the coming year as well as details of revenue and expenditure as all of these items are included in the budget proposals.

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The Council has not established any local procedures for budget review, and so adheres to the national law. However, the Council has not had the time and technical support to effectively implement the procedures.

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The Council has approved the budget before the 31st of December for FY2016 only. The FY2015 and FY2014 budgets were approved almost two months into the fiscal year.

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The Council has approved the budget before the 31st of December for FY2016 only. The FY2015 and FY2014 budgets were approved almost two months into the fiscal year.

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Information on tax and tariff rates are publicized, but payers are not informed about rights and redress processes/procedures.

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Municipal revenue staff uses very simple risk management principles. They focus their attention on revenue from businesses which provide the bulk of revenue and are much fewer in number than households.

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No compliance improvement plan with specification of audits and investigations exist.

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Revenue arrears amounted to more than 200% of total revenue collections in FY2015, both for the pre-TAR municipality and for the new amalgamated municipality.An age profile of arrears is not available, so the share of arrears older than 12 months cannot be establishe

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The Economic Department receives monthly reports from the Treasury District Office on all revenue collections with details by type and summarizes this into a report to the Mayor

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Most revenue is transferred to the municipality’s account at the Treasury District Office on a monthly basis.

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Insufficient evidence obtained.

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As there is only one municipal account, the information on cash balances is readily available (on daily basis).

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A cash flow forecast is prepared for the fiscal year, but the information on own revenues and grants from donors is not included.

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Departments and Programs are not provided with reliable information on funds available for commitment, especially where reallocations have taken place.

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The assessment team could not locate any report or evidence summarising the adjustments/reallocations during the year and, therefore, could not judge the size and frequency of these adjustments.

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The stock of expenditure arrears was 28% of total expenditure in 2015 (59% in 2014).

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Data on the stock and composition of expenditure arrears is generated annually at the end of each fiscal year. The report does not have any analysis on the ageing of these expenditure arrears.

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The payroll is supported by full documentation for all changes made to personnel records each month and checked against the previous month’s payroll data. Staff hiring and promotion is controlled by a list of approved staff positions.

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Required changes to the personnel records and payroll are updated at least monthly, generally in time for the following month’s payments. Retroactive adjustments are rare and immaterial.

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Sufficient controls exist to ensure integrity of the payroll data of greatest importance.

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Partial payroll audits or staff surveys have been undertaken within the last three completed fiscal years.

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Databases or records are maintained for contracts including data on what has been procured, value of procurement and who has been awarded contracts. There are concerns about the controls to ensure the data is accurate and complete for all procurementmethods for goods, services and works, but materiality of such concerns is judged to be less than 50%.

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83% of total value of contracts is procured through competitive bidding procedures.

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The legal framework for procurement, procurement plan for 2016, realisation of procurement operations for 2015 (i.e. statistics) as well as bidding opportunities and contract awards are posted on the PPA website. While the procurement plan and realisation of procurement operations are timely submitted, the team could not assess the timeliness of the publication of other procurement procedures such as contract awards. Complaints resolution as decided by the PPC is publicized on the PPC website.

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The procurement complaint system meets criterion (1), and three of the other criteria.

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Segregation of duties is prescribed throughout the expenditure process. More precise definition of important responsibilities may be needed.

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Expenditure commitment control procedures exist which provide partial coverage and are partially effective.

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No reliable data about the weight of the expenditure that are not compliant with regular procedures were found

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No internal audit has taken place during the period under review.

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Not applicable as no internal audit has taken place.

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Not applicable as no internal audit has taken place.

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Not applicable as no internal audit has taken place.

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Bank reconciliation for all active central government bank accounts takes place at least monthly, usually within 4 weeks from the end of each month.

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Suspense accounts are not used.

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Advance payments are not used.

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Access and changes to records is not effectively restricted and there is no unit or team in charge of verifying data integrity

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Coverage and classification of data does not allow direct comparison to the original budget for the main administrative headings.

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Budget execution reports are prepared by TDO and sent to Mayor’s office on an ad-hoc basis.

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Although there are no material concerns regarding data accuracy, an analysis of budget execution is poor as the economic or functional classification is lacking and information on the expenditures is progressive and covers expenditures where payment are done. Commitment information is not included.

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Financial reports for municipal government are prepared annually (the latest for FY2015), but are not comparable with the approved budget. They include information on revenue, expenditure, and certain assets and liabilities, including cash balances.

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Financial reports for the Municipality are not submitted for external audit.

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Accounting standards applied to all financial reports are consistent within the existing legal framework and somehow ensure consistency of reporting over time. The accounting is kept in excel, and there are no rules for recognition, valuation, classification of assets and liabilities. Finally, the national standards used in preparing annual financial reports are distant from international standards and not disclosed.

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Financial reports of municipal entities representing most total expenditures and revenues have been audited using national auditing standards during the last three completed fiscal years. However, a financial audit as required by the newly introduced Law was neverconducted by the HSC at the Municipality’s annual financial reports.

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Financial audits of the municipality’s annual financial reports for any of the last three years have not taken place.

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Financial audits of the municipality’s annual financial reports for any of the last three years have not taken place.

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The independence of the HSC is ensured through law no. 154/2014 regulates the functional, operational and financial independence, mandate and organization of the HSC, apart from a subjective criterion in the dismissal clause for the HSC Chairman. The HSC has unrestricted and timely access to most of the requested records, documentation and information. HSC has unrestricted access to municipal records, documents and information, but its mandate is heavily dependent on the MOF for the planning of its budget.

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Audit reports are not submitted to the legislature.

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Audit reports are not submitted to the legislature.

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Audit reports are not submitted to the legislature.

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Audit reports are not submitted to the legislature.

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Aggregate transfers from the national government were higher than 95% of the original estimates in both 2013 and 2015, but they were lower in 2014. Even though 2013 and 2014 represent the pre-TAR municipality and 2015 data is not comparable to data from earlier years due to TAR, the outturns are considered a proper reflection of the predictability of transfers

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Compositional variance was 88% in 2013 and 22% in 2015, and just below 4% in 2014. As for HLG-1.1 these outturns are considered a proper reflection of the predictability of transfers.

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Transfer disbursements are timely and regular, in accordance with a pre-defined schedule. Delays occur in the transfer of the first tranche of the unconditional block grant, but its weight is lower than 25% of actual disbursements.