Government has taken steps to fully implement the Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) in about 156 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in the southern zone of the country.
The move is aimed at further strengthening the public financial management regime in the country to help reduce financial leakages and wastage in government circles.
The system, according to Controller and Accountant-General, Eugene Ofosuhene, facilitates budget preparation and execution, accounting and financial reporting, cash management, assets management, human resource and payroll management.
The Finance Minister Ken Ofori–Atta, in a speech delivered on his behalf on the full implementation of GIFMIS, indicated that the implementation of GIFMIS was in line with government’s efforts at creating business friendly environment to invariably harness better opportunities for the people of Ghana through improved fiscal discipline to contain deficit and eliminate corruption as part of concerted efforts to ensure good governance.
He said government was committed to clamping down on financial malpractices and wasteful public spending, hence the prioritization of the achievement of the targets set out in the Public Financial Management (PFM) Strategy.
The GIFMIS initiative started in 2012.
The Controller and Accountant-General indicated that “all headquarters MDAs subsisting on the Consolidated fund resources are using the GIFMIS for processing their financial transactions. The GIFMIS has also been deployed to 60 MMDAs.”
However, Mr. Ofori-Atta stressed the need for the system to be reviewed to ensure that all policy, administrative, operational and technical issues were addressed effectively to ensure an effective implementation of the Internally-Generated Funds (IGFs) on GIFMIS.
“We acknowledge that there may be some challenges associated with the processes and practices, especially network connectivity. Some efforts have been made towards addressing this issue, including the introduction of the Virtual Private Network (VPN), which allows for extra and available internet connectivity,” the minister said.
Mr. Ofori-Atta encouraged all MDAs and MMDAs to accept the GIFMIS and adopt it to process their financial transactions, including their IGFs.
The Ghana Integrated Financial Management System (GIFMIS) is a platform for prudent and transparent public financial management, which commenced on a piloted basis in 2012.
As the flagship project of the Controller and Accountant General’s Department and the Ministry of Finance, GIFMIS remains one of the initiatives by the central government for the establishment of an integrated ICT-based financial management system across Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in order to improve efficiency and achieve comprehensiveness and transparency in the management of public funds.
In attendance at the forum were Greater Accra Regional Minister, Ishmael Ashitey, budget officers and internal auditors, among others.
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