A two-day sensitization workshop on Ghana Integrated Financial Management System (GIFMIS) was on Thursday opened in Cape Coast with a call on the participants to show commitment to ensure the smooth implementation of the programme.
The workshop which is jointly organized by the Controller and Accountant General Department(CAGD) and the Ministry of Finance and Economic planning is being attended by more than 60 participants mainly accountants and internal auditors of MMDS as well as Heads of Departments.
The workshops which would be organized in all the regions in the country is to among others sensitize stakeholders and solicit their support to ensure the proper implementation of the system.
Mr Siraj Tanko, GIFMIS Project Accountant , who took the participants through an overview of the system, said GIFMIS is an integrated computerized financial management system used in budget preparation and implementation, accounting/Financial reporting, cash management and assets management.
He said GIFMIS would help provide aggregate expenditure control, predictability for financial flows, expenditure and investment planning, ability to monitor expenditure and fiscal accountability.
Mr Tanko said out that GIFMIS reform process would enhance and re-enforce the internal control systems in public financial management for accountability as well as ensure an effective and efficient budget preparation, execution, monitoring and evaluation mechanism.
He explained that the system would also provide the ability to budget, track and monitor projects and grants through the chart of accounts by using the project accounting functionality as well as enhance enforcement of financial legislations.
The Project Accountant, disabused claim that the system was going to push Internal Auditors out of job, stressing that it would rather enhance their capabilities and ensure complete and timely exchange of data and information among MDAs/MMDAs and central governments.
He said the GIFMIS would in this regard train all Internal Auditors on it’s modules which include General Ledger, Purchase order, Account Receivable, Account payable, cash management and fixed Assets and that all the regions would be provided with 10 computer each in addition to the establishment of transaction processing centres.
He said despite that fact that the System has a lot of benefits, it has network availability and stability , low level of computer literacy in public sector and stakeholders skeptics as some of the challenges facing the e system.
Mr Samuel Duodu, Regional Director of the CAGD, in a welcoming address said the GIFMIS was instituted to address the loopholes in the financial sector and urged all stakeholders to give it the needed support and commitment.