SONGEA, June 20 -- FOR those who think public finance is all spreadsheets and yawns, think again. Songea District Council is proving that budget discipline can be downright exciting, especially when it earns you a clean audit opinion not once, not twice, but three times in a row! Thats right.

Songea DC has achieved what many government institutions dream of but few attain: three consecutive clean audit reports from Tanzanias mighty fiscal watchdog, the Controller and Auditor General (CAG).

And if you think this is just bureaucratic back-patting, let us be clear: a “clean audit” means that no funds went missing, no mysterious transactions crept into the books and, perhaps most miraculously, no one tried to buy a goat for the ...