The King's Diary: Dubious Spending

Dear Me

Last week I considered using public rankings of performance to motivate civil servants. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea. There is quite some information available that could be used for this. Moreover, if I go about it smartly it could restore the TKP’s legitimacy and help deliver better services to thepeople.

The other day I got a ranking with amounts in outstanding audit queries by district, derived from information of the Auditor General. It shows how district officials manage taxpayers’ money. Out of 134 districts there are only five without any dubious spending: Chato, Kilolo, Songea MC, Iringa MC and Njombe. All others spent public money in ways that are unacceptable to the Kingdom’s supreme audit institution! Some managed to misspent as much as Kingdom Shillings 8,000,000,000.

(click to interact with the PNG)

It seems a good idea to honor the officers who have done well, maybe by giving them a promotion and allowing them to manage even larger budgets. In particular those in Njombe deserve credit. They have not had audit queries for years! There are also a few districts that managed to improve their financial management considerably recently: they cleared large amounts in outstanding queries. Especially officials in Iramba, Mpwapwa and Dodoma MC deserve to be praised for this.

On the other hand authorities in Kilwa, Same and Ukerewe do an extremely poor job. Each of them generated at least 6,000,000,000 Kingdom Shillings in dubious spending last year. These people need an investigation by the Kingdom’s Anti-Corruption Bureau; if I decide not to fire them right away!

Hmmm … this ranking could indeed work for me. Let me call a few journalists and television stations and organize a nice ceremony for the good performers.