Abstract
Many developing countries are putting pressure on urban local governments to control expenditure, mobilize resources and raise revenues in order to meet increasing public demands for services and to meet the costs of operating and maintaining existing services and projects. The need to improve and expand urban public services is a top priority in many developing countries especially after attaining national independence. This calls for sound fiscal management in an environment of limited resources like that of many LDCs. The purpose of this study was to generate, through the Delphi Probe, a body of informed and reasoned opinions and judgments of twenty-one experts in the areas of revenue generation, expenditure control and budgeting in order to make reform proposals to improve the fiscal performance of urban local governments in Zimbabwe. The following factors were identified as major factors to affect revenue generation: demand for services, shortage of skilled humanpower, revenue raising mechanisms. The following were identified as revenue sources with the greatest potential for improvement in revenue generation: user fees, local taxes. All members agreed that social services costs, education, and housing are going to be major expenditure items for urban local governments in the next thirteen years. The following recommendations and suggestions were made: (a) User charges should be seriously pursued as revenue generation resource with highest payoff. (b) Urban local governments should be aware of and utilize all tax sources available to them. (c) Inexpensive microcomputers could be used for developing accurate tax information systems. (d) Training and information should be supplied to local officials to help them identify opportunities for direct cost recovery in urban public services. (e) Service delivery agencies should carefully monitor the productivity of the public service as well as inputs. (f) Local governments should have much fiscal autonomy. (g) Ministry of Manpower Planning and Development should make all efforts to identify and recruit Zimbabwean skilled labor force now abroad. (h) Continuous budgeting would be a realistic budgeting form appropriate for local governments in Zimbabwe now. (i) Budgeting and planning should be coordinated as much as possible. (j) Financial analysis of local governments' financial systems should be made on an ongoing basis to identify under-used revenue sources, project revenue and expenditure trends into the future. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.).