GIFMIS to overhaul public accounts management system

Daniel Amin Sahnoon, Internal Oracle Expert of the Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS), has said it is an actual all-encompassing accounting system with the capacity to enhance government’s accounting system.

He said GIFMIS is poised to remove the drudgery of manual processes for the button manipulated accounting software system.

Mr Sahnoon was speaking at a sensitization session of a five-day programme for the Ho-Municipal Area Accounting and related staff, on the deployment of other funds, including Internally Generated Funds (IGF) onto GIFMIS.

GIFMIS was launched in 2009, as part of the Public Financial Management (PFM) reforms, with support from the World Bank, EU, DANIDA and DFID-UK.

The programme, running under the auspices of the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD), is to promote transparency and efficiency, and maximize payment and commitment controls, among others.

Ho Municipal and six other local governing areas, re piloting the project.

Mr Sahnoon said it is important all staff stop being skeptical, accept the system or be left behind.

He said basically the system is following the known accounting principles, and consolidating all processes onto one platform.

Mr Sahnoon said the new system is policy-based, swift and less likely to be abused, as “human intervention is eradicated as much as possible”.

He said the system can process payments for only companies having tax identification numbers, and registered with the Value Added Tax (VAT) office.

Mr Sahnoon pointed out that the system is not overly rigid, and that there are inbuilt mechanisms for advance payments to be regularized later.

The GIFMIS Team, during the five days, would take staff through hands-on training on the system, and return later for post-training field support.

Francis Ablode, Deputy Ho Municipal Finance Officer, said there is the urgent need to educate suppliers, including landlords to get tax numbers.