Economic efficiency of government
decline in efficiency. These are equipment purchases and electricity purchases respectively.
Similar level
Observation of the remaining three expenditure categories reveals that they too declined in efficiency. However, resources were allocated at the same rate, 8.4 per cent, to these three expenditure categories and they all averaged a similar level of decline, 45 per cent, in efficiency. Transportation, one of the three categories, actually increased its efficiency in 2007 by 12 per cent and showed a more variable performance over the period than the rest of the expenditure categories, improving its contribution in 2009 and 2012. Fuel showed some improvement in 2009 after which its contribution to output declined on an annual basis. Rental and maintenance showed no improvement at all during the period of review.
Morality and social justice
As in the case of labour, in measuring the impact of each expenditure category, it is assumed that all other factors were held constant. While this approach is a simplification of the issue, it helps readers to see and understand the impact of each expenditure category on its own on the efficiency of government spending. The issue here is whether the amount of work that the government reportedly did justified the level of expenditure and the rate at which resources were allocated to the various expenditure categories.
Issues of morality and social justice may even lead some to query the validity and veracity of the level of output claimed by the government in the face of the evidence contained in the Tables. Even as one seeks to draw such conclusions, it must be kept in mind that government expenditure covers the work of several ministries and departments and a variety of issues. This analysis would not reveal which ministry or department or which issues made government performance look as poorly as it did during the period of 2006 to 2014.
was a two per cent improvement in efficiency over 2009, the efficiency output was consistently on a downward trend.
While one might make room for unforeseen contingencies that lead to higher spending, the consistent decline in efficiency points to a different cause of the problem. What is clear is that more equipment will not solve a problem unless people are prepared to use it well to do the work. Labour productivity therefore remains an important bone of contention.
Table 4 below deals with the money spent on electricity and the impact that that expenditure had on government output. It turns out that government departments were not efficient users of electricity, even though this expenditure category exhibited the smallest decline in efficiency. It also received allocations at a slower pace than the other four categories of expenditure.
However, the fact that efficiency showed the smallest decline in this category of expenditure could result from some additional factor. One could assume therefore that efforts at energy conservation may have helped to improve the impact of expenditures in this area.
TABLE 4
On the basis of the foregoing, it is difficult to understand how the previous administration could boast about great performance. The areas of the economy for which it has direct responsibility were not well managed. This outcome points to a larger problem that might be connected to an inability to execute works in a satisfactory and timely manner. The result of this is output actually being lower than it should be.