The Public Finance Management Act (PFM) is said to be inactive, as regulations are still to be drafted.
This is because the Ministry of Finance and Treasury (MoFT) lacked the capacity to draft the regulations.
This was highlighted by the Permanent Secretary (PS) Harry Kuma during the hearing of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) into the 2016 Supplementary Bill 2017.
Responding to questions by PAC about the PFM Act, Kuma said the current system to enable payments within the ministry now introduce Tin numbers that link up with revenue finance system and financial management system.
He explained that the system is to enable and verified payments of vouchers comes with valid performers and valid companies.
However, he said the major gap there is the procurement rules and regulations that are still not clear with line ministries and most ministries not adhere to it.
Therefore he said they are conducting workshops to educate other line ministries to understand and comply with the new systems and processes in place.
“The PFM Act is a policy decision of the government but we still to draft and implement the regulations due to lack of capacity in the part of the ministry.”
However, he said that other regulations that are in place were audit regulations, procurement regulations and budget preparation regulations to ensure time table of PFM Act is adhered to.
This is to ensure budgets are properly costed by ministries and properly executed.
By AATAI JOHN
