Treasury launches Municipal Money for all to see

Tshwane - Municipal Money, an open local government budget data portal, was launched by National Treasury on Wednesday.

The portal provides citizens and other stakeholders with access to comparable, verified information on the financial performance of each municipality, according to Treasury.

The aim is to promote transparency and citizen engagement in local governance "through the visualisation and ‘demystification’ of information about municipal spending".

In his Budget 2016 speech Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan committed to launch such a data portal. According to Treasury, it is also in line with international best practice, in terms of which governments are increasingly opening up their data to the public and specifically budget data - to promote oversight, transparency and accountability.

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"South Africa has demonstrated its commitment to open government by co-founding and participating in the Open Government Partnership – a partnership of more than 69 countries committed to working together to develop and implement ambitious open government reforms," Treasury said in a statement.

It describes Municipal Money is a user-friendly website that utilises a variety of media and tools to present key municipal financial information, and also to explain the related financial concepts and their relevance to citizens.

Municipal Money draws on the raw data from a linked database, which is now also available for anyone to view, download and re-use. Treasury envisages that the raw data will be used by analysts or app developers in conjunction with other data sources to create innovative, interesting and valuable new applications for municipal financial data.

The portal was developed in partnership with Code for South Africa, an NGO that promotes informed public decision-making using technology.

More information on Municipal Money is available here and the raw data can be accessed directly here.

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