Automating public finance: Zimbabwe’s next governance reform

By Richard Ndebele

For years, public financial management (PFM) reform in Zimbabwe — as across much of Africa — has centred on strengthening laws, tightening procurement regulations and improving audit frameworks. Amendments to the Public Finance Management Act. Enhanced oversight mechanisms. Improved reporting standards.

Yet in 2026, the most consequential reform in public finance is no longer legislative.

It is technological.

The quiet but critical shift underway globally is the automation of PFM through data analytics, artificial intelligence and digital workflows. For Zimbabwe, this is not a distant or abstract conversation — it is an urgent governance priority.

From Compliance to Fiscal Intelligence

Zimbabwe has made notable progress in strengthening its public finance architecture, particularly through the adoption of the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) and ongoing Treasury reforms aimed at improving expenditure control and reporting discipline.

However, many processes across ministries, departments and state entities remain manual, fragmented or retrospective.

Finance teams still spend considerable time consolidating spreadsheets, reconciling accounts and compiling periodic reports. Reporting often captures what has already happened rather than what is unfolding. By the time anomalies are identified, the opportunity for early corrective action may already have narrowed.

Automation fundamentally alters this model.

When data analytics is embedded into treasury systems, expenditure monitoring shifts from periodic reporting to real-time dashboards. Revenue flows can be analysed continuously rather than quarterly. Procurement transactions can be screened algorithmically to flag unusual patterns early.

Public finance moves from record-keeping to fiscal intelligence.

Zimbabwe’s Fiscal Context Demands Smarter Systems

Zimbabwe’s fiscal landscape is complex and dynamic:

• Revenue performance remains sensitive to commodity price movements, particularly in mining.
• Exchange rate volatility affects budgeting and expenditure predictability.
• State-owned enterprises continue to require careful oversight.
• Climate variability impacts agriculture, water systems and food security financing.

In such an environment, static financial systems are insufficient.

Predictive analytics could improve revenue forecasting, especially for mineral royalties and VAT collections. Automated commitment controls could strengthen expenditure discipline and reduce the risk of arrears. Data-driven oversight of transfers to public entities could improve accountability and performance monitoring.

Automation, in this context, becomes a tool of fiscal resilience — not merely administrative efficiency.

Professionalisation in the Digital Era

Zimbabwe’s reform agenda has long emphasised strengthening public sector capacity. The next frontier is ensuring that public finance professionals are equipped not only with accounting and regulatory expertise, but with digital and analytical fluency.

Future budget analysts, internal auditors and treasury officials will increasingly need to understand:

• Data extraction and cleaning
• Dashboard development
• Automation of reporting workflows
• Predictive modelling for revenue and expenditure
• AI-assisted anomaly detection

Without this shift, investments in digital systems risk being underutilised. With it, Zimbabwe can build a public finance system that is agile, responsive and evidence-driven.

Automation, Transparency and Governance Credibility

The automation debate also intersects with governance and ESG considerations.

Investors assessing Zimbabwe’s macroeconomic prospects increasingly evaluate institutional transparency and policy predictability alongside fiscal metrics. Data-driven PFM systems enhance confidence by strengthening:

• Transaction traceability
• Audit trails
• Standardised reporting across ministries
• Early detection of irregular expenditure

As Zimbabwe deepens engagement with international financial institutions and seeks to mobilise sustainable finance, the credibility of its fiscal data becomes as important as the numbers themselves.

Moreover, as climate adaptation and sustainability financing gain prominence, government will need more precise expenditure tagging and impact measurement. Climate-related spending in agriculture, energy and water cannot be credibly tracked without integrated data systems.

At both sovereign and corporate levels, sustainability reporting ultimately depends on reliable public financial data.

Risks and Safeguards

Automation is not without risk. Digital systems introduce cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Poorly designed algorithms can embed bias or generate misleading outputs. Over-reliance on automated processes without professional oversight can weaken judgment rather than strengthen it.

Zimbabwe’s transition toward automated PFM must therefore be accompanied by robust data governance frameworks, strong cybersecurity safeguards and clear accountability mechanisms.

Technology should enhance institutional integrity — not replace it.

A Strategic Opportunity

Zimbabwe stands at an inflection point.

Rather than layering incremental reforms onto partially manual systems, the country has the opportunity to deepen integration of analytics and automation within ongoing Treasury modernisation efforts. Strengthening IFMIS with real-time dashboards, improving interoperability between revenue and expenditure systems, and embedding data analytics in procurement oversight could significantly elevate fiscal governance.

The most successful public finance systems in the coming decade will not simply be those with balanced budgets.

They will be those capable of producing timely, accurate, data-driven insights that inform policy and build trust.

Fiscal credibility in the 21st century will be measured not only by deficit levels, but by the intelligence, transparency and responsiveness of the systems that manage public resources.

For Zimbabwe, the next chapter of public financial management reform will not be written only in statutes and policy papers.

It will be coded into systems.

And the question is no longer whether automation should form part of the reform agenda — but how deliberately and responsibly it can be implemented.

Richard Ndebele is Manager: Technical, Research and Quality Assurance at the Chartered Governance and Accountancy Institute in Zimbabwe (CGI Zimbabwe), and serves as Country Champion for the PAFA Sustainability Centre of Excellence. He writes on governance, sustainability and public financial management, with a focus on strengthening decision-making and institutional performance in African economies.Can be contacted on rndebele@cgizim.org