Accountant General to get greater role in gov't spending
Published:Friday | September 24, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Huntley Medley, Contributing Editor - Business
By the end of the current financial year in March 2011, the Accountant General's department is to be relocated from its current King Street location in downtown Kingston as part of plans to beef up the operations there. This is in preparation for a fully integrated financial-management system in the public sector to rein in spending. Under the plans already being worked on for the creation of a Central Treasury Management System (CTMS) and a Single Treasury Account (STA), the Accountant General's department and the Ministry of Finance will have real-time viewing of spending and other financial operations of all ministries, departments and public bodies.
Financial secretary Dr Wesley Hughes told the Financial Gleaner that several locations are being looked at to house the department, which will be assuming a greater role in the elimination of idle balances among all government ministries and quasi-government public bodies.
"We are in the process of relocating the Accountant General's Depart-ment, modernising its systems and training its staff," the financial secretary said.
"Modernising the Accountant General's Department is crucial in terms of the technology," he added, noting its important role in the implementation of the CTMS.
"The system is going to be very dependent on the capacity and efficiency of a modernised Accountant General's Department."
An organisational management analyst is being hired to oversee the strengthening of the department, which finance ministry officials said is not expected to see any major change in functions, but more so significant changes in its operational focus.
The finance ministry has not disclosed what additional expenditure the planned changes are likely to incur.
Meanwhile, director-general in the finance ministry, Devon Rowe, said the design of the CTMS system, including pilots to be tested in the big-spending ministries of finance, transport and works, and education by April next year, was now underway.
"We are implementing a financial management system in all ministries which will interface with the financial-management system at the Accountant General's Department and we intend over time, either here in the Ministry of Finance, or in the Accountant General's Department, to be able to look at all ministries' operations in terms of what those payments will be," Rowe said.
He pointed out that the CTMS is trying to, "have one account through which Government makes transactions to ensure that idle balances do not exist, and ease the burden on debt creation."
The process is being monitored by a committee with representation from the Planning Institute of Jamaica, the Bank of Jamaica, the Accountant General's Department, and several sections of the finance ministry responsible for cash management, economic planning, debt management and financial regulations.
"We have compiled an inventory of all accounts and we will be moving gradually over time to close those accounts to ensure that by the time we are ready to start with the CTMS, we are aware of all Government accounts and we will be transferring those balances as well into the treasury single account," Rowe told the Financial Gleaner.
Big move
He stressed that the process will take place in phases, which will inform later steps resulting in the rollout in all ministries during the next financial year, and in all public bodies thereafter.
"We expect to make a big move from lopsidedness in financial availability, to be able to prioritise all Government payments through one place," said Rowe.
Finance ministry officials gave no estimates of expected savings from the implementation of the system, preferring to be vague on that point.
"We don't have a precise figure but we know it will be significant at the outset. In the first year or two we expect to see some savings," was all the ministry's director-general would say.
The ministry is looking to have a full-blown system up and working across the public sector in under five years. Rowe noted that the internationally accepted time period of five to 10 years for the design and implementation of a CTMS could be shortened since, he said, Jamaica already had some components in place to start with.
For senior director in the fiscal policy management unit of the ministry, Courtney Williams, the creation of the new financial systems was no longer only a matter of policy decisions, but was also now enshrined in law. Legislation as a precursor to the CTSM and TSA was tabled and passed in Parliament, earlier this year.
"Legislation now requires that a central treasury management system be in place; and it is now in the Financial Administration and Audit Act that they be implemented in the central Government, to be followed by public bodies.