Treasury restructures resource management/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 17 – The Treasury is re-engineering the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMIS) as part of its reforms aimed at improving the management of public financial resources.
Treasury Permanent Secretary Joseph Kinyua said that re-engineering the IFMIS will support the concept of a Treasury Single Account (TSA), making it easier for the government to determine the total collections by the Kenya Revenue Authority at any point in time.
“The re-engineering IFMIS strategic plan identified and recommended interventions within seven key components which are: re-engineering for business results, plan to budget, procure to pay, revenue to cash, record to report, ICT to support, and communicate to change,” he said.
A TSA is a unified structure of government bank accounts that gives a consolidated view of government cash resources, enabling efficient management of money through regular monitoring of the governments cash balance.
Kinyua said the IFMIS is shifting from the use of a modular based approach in favor of a full cycle end-to-end integrated financial management system that is secure, reliable, effective and transparent.
“The vibrant Steering Committee in IFMIS, chaired by the Minister for Finance and a membership from key ICT, security and public finance institutions, has contributed to the leadership and vision of the re-engineering program,” he said.
Acting Head of Public Service and Secretary to the Cabinet Francis Kimemia said that a strong Public Financial Management system is a catalyst for economic growth and re-engineering is needed because of two key factors.
“Firstly, it’s important that we employ improved technologies to solve our financial budgeting, transaction processing and payments to resolve the challenges we have faced in the past,” he said.
“Secondly, we need to conform to the new mandates and structures stipulated in our new constitution which require the government to put in place an efficient, effective and transparent public financial management system at the national and county level,” he added.
Kimemia said that a fully re-engineered IFMIS will provide improved management of resources and services to citizens, reduced bureaucracy and cost of operations, increased public accountability and eliminate fraud and corruption by providing citizens better access to information.
