Government has launched a new Ghana Integrated Financial Management System (GIFMIS) Budget Module, aimed at improving the estimation of the budget, and enhancing accuracy of budget data.

The new system, developed with the support of the World Bank, the European Union, DFID and DANIDA, is being used for the preparation of the 2015, 2016 and 2017 budgets.

Launching it, Major (rtd) Mahama Samuel Tara, Chief Director of the Ministry of Finance, said the GIFMIS Budget Module would eventually lead to a reduction in budget variations, and improve management of public expenditure, as well as improve decision-making and government fiscal policy.

“We share the belief that a strong PFM system is absolutely necessary for the transparent and efficient use of public resources,” he said.

Major Tara said government's goal of the PFM is to strengthen regulations, rules, systems and processes, to ensure that we are able to efficiently capture, allocate, utilize, account, report and audit every public financial resource, regardless of where it is generated.

He said, government over the medium term, was strengthening budget coverage to all public funds, making the budget comprehensive.

“Whilst recent efforts had led to budget coverage of a significant portion of all public resources, there still remains a substantial amount of public resources that are generated, utilized and accounted for, outside the current budget system by various public institutions,” he said.

Major Tara explained that in all this, government wanted to establish strong systems for monitoring internally generated funds, a major sickness undermining government commitment to transparency and accountability in the use of public funds.

He disclosed that in the next few years, the system would be deployed to the Metropolitan, Municipal and Districts Assemblies, to capture budgets at the local level.

Mr Patrick Numo, Director of Budget at the Ministry of Finance, said the completion of the Module would provide a simpler, easier system for use in the budget process.

It would also provide seamless data import and export in to and from the GIFMIS financials, as well as promote transparent and efficient budget management.

“And with over 200 system generated reports, it will facilitate effective budget monitoring and improve decision-making, “he said, adding that the Budget Module would be interfaced with the Human Resource Information System to improve accuracy of the compensation budget.