<<Print>>

The Controller and Accountant-General (CAG), Eugene Ofosuhene, has mentioned that 156 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies would be rolled onto the Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) by March next year.

Sixty MMDAs have been fully enrolled onto the system, which began in 2012, and the controller hopes to get all the 216 MMDAs on board by March next year.

This was made known at a stakeholders’ consultative and sensitisation workshop held for the southern part of Ghana in Accra yesterday.

According to the controller, GIFMIS, which is the flagship project of the CAG department and the Ministry of Finance (MoF), is aimed at improving the efficiency in the management of public funds.

He said his department was not enthused with the way MMDAs were hauled before the Public Account Committee (PAC) of the Parliament of Ghana for misappropriation of public funds, hence the need for the full implementation of the GIFMIS.

He noted that the successful implementation of GIFMIS throughout all the MMDAs, in line with the Public Financial Management (PFM) Act 621 (2016), would go a long way to reduce external queries and render PAC redundant.

He said the clarion call in all developing countries over the years has been the need to wage war against corruption, especially in the public sector, and added that “I dare to say that the strict adherence of GIFMIS will lead to the elimination of corruption in the MMDAs.”

A Deputy Finance Minister, Kwaku Kwarteng also added that GIFMIS would be the primary system of managing public funds, including Consolidated Fund, Internally Generated Fund (IGF), Statutory and Donor Funds, and would replace all stand-alone legacy financial management systems at the MMDAs.

He said government was committed to cracking down on financial malpractices and wasteful public spending, hence the need to create a more business-friendly environment and invariably harness better opportunities for the people of Ghana through improved fiscal discipline.

GIFMIS Project Manager, Siraj Tanko said the project would be used for budget preparation and execution, accounting and financial reporting, cash and asset management, human resource and payroll management.

He explained that with the remaining 156 MMDAs, Greater Accra has four MMDAs left; Volta, 20; Central, 12; Western, 17; Eastern, 18; Ashanti, 22; Brong Ahafo, 18; Northern, 24, Upper East and West, 11 and 10 respectively.

Tanko added that the financial accounting module has been rolled out in 250 national Spending Units (Sus), 350 regional Sus, 54 IGF institutions, three statutory fund institutions and four teaching hospitals.

He said GIFMIS is working well due to strong political support, high-level administrative support, strong local technical team, and donor support from the World Bank.