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Jun 11, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
I fail to understand the histrionics about Guyana’s Integrated Financial Management and Accounting System (IFMAS). All of a sudden, it has been discovered that two modules of the IFMAS are not functional. This discovery has led in turn to a slew of ill-informed criticisms, including inexplicably, criticisms of the Auditor General in relation to the functioning of IFMAS.
In order to appreciate the nature of the critics’ case, I need to use an example.
There are many Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) in Guyana which have four-wheel drive capabilities. Most of the owners of these vehicles never have reason to engage the four-wheel drive, because they drive mainly on the roads.
Does the fact that these owners have not activated their four-wheel drive mean that there are deficiencies in the operation of the vehicle? And why blame the mechanic for the fact that the driver does not engage the four-wheel drive mode on the vehicle.
Using this analogy, I fail to understand how the Auditor General is to be blamed for not exposing the fact that the two modules of IFMAS were inoperable.
The public deserves better than such criticisms. The public is entitled to a less emotive and more educated response to this recent “discovery”. It is appalling that the public should be led to believe that serious financial accounting deficiencies may have resulted because of the failure to bring on stream the Asset Management/ Inventory Module and the Purchasing Module of IFMAS.
Nothing could be further from the truth. IFMAS offers a line of protection against fraud. Indeed many years ago when there was an alleged major fraud at the Treasury, it was the very IFMAS which proved to be a God-send in providing information that would have been helpful in reconciling the pension payments that were believed to have been manipulated in the alleged fraud.
It is the very IFMAS which is today responsible for the superior presentation of the Estimates of Expenditure and Revenue during the Budget presentation. It is the very IFMAS which allows members of parliament greater information, including detailed information about spending on individual projects.
It is the very IFMAS which is now being assailed with criticisms which allows for precise accounting for sums spent by the government. It is the very IFMAS which, at the click of mouse, can indicate exactly how much money has been disbursed for a particular programme and how much is outstanding from a voted provision.
It is the very IFMAS which now allows the Office of the Auditor General a better tool of reconciliation. Instead of reconciling from mere vouchers and warrants, the Auditor General can guard against the possibility of unproduced warrants and vouchers by referring to IFMAS.
Thus, if an agency claims that it spent $15M on a certain line item and if the vouchers are produced for such expenditure, the Auditor General can go to IFMAS and confirm that this indeed is the total amount spent. The Auditors can also do the converse. They can obtain data from IFMAS and then demand that the respective warrants and vouchers be produced. In other words, IFMAS enhances the auditing functioning.
IFMAS has been in existence for more than ten years. Instead of bemoaning the fact that two modules are not being implemented, the concern should be as to whether it is still relevant. Technology changes so rapidly these days, especially accounting software, that instead of being preoccupied with the non- functioning of two modules of a seven-module system, the main concern should be about upgrading the existing software or to obtain new software that will be more up to date.
The fact that two modules were not implemented does not mean that they were supposed to be implemented. The designers may have included them because the software may have come with these modules, and having them would provide the owners with an option that they wish to explore. But even if there were plans to utilize all seven modules, consideration has to be given towards progressively bringing the various modules in line. I do not believe that even the harshest critic of the government would argue that all seven should have been brought on-line simultaneously.
The ideal thing to have done was to have worked with a few of the modules, tweak them and assess how they needed to be adapted, and then decide when and how the other modules would be engaged.
It is respectfully submitted here that there is neither the technological and legislative nor regulatory infrastructure to bring the two outstanding modules into being. It is also respectfully submitted that there would have been a need to streamline financial systems and inventory systems before the two modules could have been engaged.
It is further contended here that the engaging of such modules would not have necessarily contributed to improved efficiency in accounting. But more importantly, it is also suggested here that bringing the two modules on board would have presented significant challenges in terms of resources, both human and physical, and that the costs of overcoming these challenges perhaps would not have been worth the while.
I will take up these issues in a subsequent column.
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