Mbabane – Government’s performance more than doubled during the 2025/26 financial year, rising from 22% in the first quarter to 48% at the end of the year, according to the Government annual report released by Prime Minister Russell Mmiso Dlamini.
The assessment shows a steady improvement in implementation throughout the financial year, with performance increasing to 31% in the second quarter and 41 %in the third quarter before reaching 48% at the annual level.
The figures mean the government recorded a 26% point improvement between the opening quarter and the end of the financial year.
The sharpest increase came between the first and second quarters, when performance rose by nine percentage points, followed by a 10 % point increase between the second and third quarters.
A further seven percentage points was recorded between the third quarter and the annual assessment.
The report attributes the improvement to corrective action and lessons gained during implementation as ministries and departments worked through challenges encountered earlier in the financial year.
The 22% first-quarter performance reflected a slow start to implementation, with delayed budget releases, procurement processes and planning challenges affecting the execution of planned activities.
As the year progressed, implementation picked up across government programmes, resulting in the 48 % annual score.
The performance report provides a picture of how the government progressed from a weak start rather than simply looking at the final annual figure.
At the beginning of the financial year, fewer than a quarter of planned outputs had been achieved or were progressing according to the assessment.
By the end of the year, that performance had more than doubled.
The improvement was recorded across the period despite continued challenges involving funding, procurement, legislation and coordination between ministries.
The report says the experience highlights the importance of addressing implementation problems early in the financial year so that delays do not carry over into subsequent quarters.
It recommends that the government front-load critical activities, improve quarterly monitoring and deal with bottlenecks as they arise.
With the annual performance reaching 48% after starting at 22%, the report shows that implementation gathered pace as the financial year progressed.
The challenge now is to maintain that upward trend in the remaining years of the Programme of Action and ensure that the gains recorded between the first and final quarters translate into higher levels of delivery.
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