Nairobi County Executives and Chief Officers undertook a three-day Integrated Financial Management System (IFMIS ) training on eProcurement and budgeting cycles.
Speaking during the opening of the session; Nairobi County Finance Executive, Charles Kerich, said the exercise’s objective is to increase transparency, efficiency, and accountability in the sectors, allow tracking and management of budgets effectively, provision of data accuracy, and reduce human error and analysis to help organizations make informed decisions.
Said County Executive Kerich, “Governor Sakaja takes performance and revenue collection seriously. Hence, he encouraged the finance sector to ensure that all levels of staff in the county government are trained to handle procure expenditure processes. This will ensure accountability and prudent management of finances. IFMIS is a tool that we all need to put to good use. Otherwise, we all get stuck. It has to be two way; Technical and operational, which must be used seamlessly
Most counties do not use even 20% of IFMIS due to a lack of knowledge. It’s a tool for creating budgets as opposed to using Excel Spending/procurement.
“The Finance County Executive emphasized that the role of the respective sectors is to facilitate all sectors. Said Mr. Kerich noting that “It is expected that at the end of this session, each County Executive and Chief Officer will be able to generate their reports as well as monitor sector budget usage. This will eliminate unnecessary suspicion.”
Speaking in the same function the Chief Officer of Finance and Economic Planning Asha Abdi emphasized the role of IFMIS at national and County levels of Government. She said that the system has reformed the core PFM systems of budget formulation and execution, public procurement, and financial reporting in the county.
The chief Finance officer further said that the Nairobi City County Government under the leadership of Governor Sakaja has endeavored to roll out an end-to-end e-procurement process through the IFMIS system, the county together with the National Treasury and has embarked on a training program aimed at equipping county staff at different levels on the use of the management system.
So far, the county has been able to train procurement officers, accountants, scorers, Un-sealers, and other users. Training of Nairobi City County Executives -CEC and Chief officers marks an important milestone that the County is now fully using FMIS in its operations; the system will assist the county in its commitments and manage its payments and debts, while simultaneously ensuring quality of financial statements.
