By Judith Ugwumadu
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
A new Financial Management Information System (SFMIS) has been launched by Somalia’s finance department to improve accountability in processing transactions, it announced at the weekend.
SFMIS system will focus on budgeting, expenditure and revenue collection in a bid to improve reporting capabilities and establish an accurate audit trail, the Somali government said.
It added that improved timeliness, accuracy and comprehensiveness of financial reports would help make government decisions more effective.
Somalia’s finance minister Hussein Abdi Halane said the SFMIS would provide greater transparency on contracts/concessions review and asset recovery.
‘The goal is to deploy a robust IT infrastructure to all of the Ministry of Finance offices and all key government institutions and stakeholders,’ he said.
According to the government, the previous manual system lacked transparency and accountability, it was difficult to pay the salaries of civil servants on time and took too long to address various issues.
It is hoped that after implementing this system Somalia’s public finances will be managed properly and improve the overall public financial management, it said.
In addition, the new PFM system will enable the MoF to manage procurement processes across ministries, departments and other government institutions.
SFMIS, which is being financed by the World Bank, will go live in January 2015.