Government finance statistics systems and national accrual accounting more generally are recommended to African countries for transparency and to improve their budgetary and macroeconomic management. The costs of implementing such systems are often underestimated, however, as is the relevance of the concepts themselves. Conversely, the advertised advantages may have trouble materializing in the current economic and financial context, marked notably by the almost total exclusion of financial markets, thus making an asset-liability management approach quite illusory. Moreover, it is difficult to believe that a change in the accounting model used could bear much fruit in contexts of poor governance. It is likely more useful to place emphasis on improvements that could be made without changing the accounting framework, notably in terms of monitoring public spending and accountability for payment arrears.