The government has disclosed that the implementation of the Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information Systems (GIFMIS) has significantly helped to reduce budget overruns in the country’s public sector.
A Deputy Minister of Finance, Cassiel Ato Forson, made this disclosure when the Global President of the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS), Babs Omotowa and the executives of the Ghana branch paid a courtesy call on him at the Ministry of Finance in Accra.
At the end of the 2012 elections, Ghana recorded a budget deficit of GH¢8,648.7 million, which represented 12% of gross domestic product (GDP), against the target of 6.7% of GDP.
This meant that the government’s outlay was in excess of the revenue received. In short, the government spent more money than it made.
This development and others prompted the government to fast track the implementation of the four year GIFMIS project in 2012 which aimed at promoting efficiency, transparency and accountability in public financial management through rationalization and modernization of budgeting and public expenditure management of the government.
Mr. Forson maintained that the current government was committed to fighting budget overruns hence the implementation of the project.
According to him, GIFMIS had significantly helped to reduce budget overruns. It was now becoming a thing of the past.
In the sense that the Procure to Pay (P2P) system under the GIFMISwhich combines the three modules; the Purchasing Module, Accounts Payable Module and Cash Management Modules, had been deployed in 28 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in Accra and their spending units, he explained.
Mr. Forson stated: “You have to load the procurement plan and the things you have procured to the system and then monitor it till you are paid.
So, the process is there to give government the idea to find out at what stage you can be able to identify contracts that are on the database for us to pay.
The government at any time in point knows government position in terms of contract database how much is in arrears, how much is expected to come on board, which contract is being awarded and how does it pay.”
Touching on procurement practice, the Deputy Minister of Finance noted that procurement is very important in eliminating corruption from the procurement and supply systems in the country, noting that; “corruption starts from procurement, so we need to employ the right procurement professions”.
Mr. Forson, therefore, appealed to theCIPS and its local branch to encourage more Ghanaian youth to develop interest in the procurement profession.
The Global President of the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS), Babs Omotowa assured the government under his leadership that he would work with the local branch to attract more Ghanaian youth into the procurement profession. This, he said would be done through training.
He added: “We are willing to support the government in the procurement area by bringing professionalism to bear on the public sector procurement”.
However, Mr. Omotowa, who is also the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria LNG Limited lamented that most people in the procurement industry in Africa, including Ghana, are not professionals, hence the upsurge of corruption and fraud in procurements.
Meanwhile, the five-member delegation of the institute, including the Ghana branch, Mrs. Stella Addo, branch vice chair, Simon Annan; branch advisory board member, Collins Agyemang Sarpong and Fellow of the institute, Dr. Tett Afotey Walters also paid a call on the Chief Executive of the Public Procurement Authority (PPA), Samuel Sallas-Mensah at his office.
The procurement profession, Mr. Sallas-Mensah said, should be properly regulated to save enormous government resources from going waste in the country.
Picture Caption
(l-r) Dr Tett Afotey- Fellow of the institute, Collins Agyemang Sarpong-Branch Advisory Board Member, Babs Omotowa-Global President, CIPS, Mrs Stella Addo-CIPS Ghana Chairperson, Simon Annan-Branch Vice Chair
African Eye News.com
