Chronicle Editor
Mthabisi Tshuma, Business Reporter
THE management of public funds would soon be decentralised to all districts countrywide as part of efforts to promote enhanced development at a local level.
The decentralising process has seen the establishment of 63 Public Finance Management System (PFMS) kiosks dotted around the country.
Of these, 43 kiosks are now operational with 10 of them having been officially commissioned by the Minister of Information Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services, Dr Jenfan Muswere and his deputy, Dingumuzi Phuti in the past weeks.
In a recent interview, director of infrastructure development and management within the ministry, Mr Newman Nyamhuri said the PFMS kiosks will ensure effective management of public funds.
“PFMS is Public Finance Management System that is derived from the Public Finance Management Act in managing public resources.
“The system is used in the management of the public funds and it has the financial module, sale and distribution module, materials management module, customer relationship management and grants management module,” said Mr Nyamhuri.
He said the kiosks model was used in national budget utilisation and management.
“The PFMS system has a network that spans into all 10 provincial capitals across the country and was not present in all districts across the country but was only present in all district hospitals for the grants management module,” said Mr Nyamhuri.
“The rest of all district MDAs (ministries departments and agencies) did not have connectivity so they had to travel to provincial capitals for the budget utilisation and other related online transactions.”
The official said this resulted in loss of source documents, delay in reconciliations and to some extent loss of revenue since district MDAs will resort to manual operations that allow pilferages in the system.
“With these problems persisting this gave birth to the establishment of the PFMS kiosks. The PFMS district kiosks are 63 in total, one per each district across the country situated at DAs office.
“Having the PFMS district kiosks situated at DAs office was a deliberate strategic decision. The DA is the control centre for all district office and most MDAs are concentrated on the DAs office.
“Also, in terms of ownership, it will not only be owned by one institution,” said Mr Nyamhuri.
– @mthabisi_mthire
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