Assessment of the Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) In Public Sector Procurement in Ghana

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Date
November 2014
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Public procurement constituted 50 to 70% of the national budget (after personal emoluments), 14% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and 24% of total imports (World Bank CPAR 2003). Goods, works and services intended for public use should be procured based on national procurement rules and in the case of Ghana the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663). The rationale for Procurement rules is for governments to have the best value for money when procuring. Procurement is a common source of corruption and therefore procurement systems tend to include controls aimed to detect and deter corruption. This dissertation assessed the Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) in terms of number of transactions processed, user friendliness of the system, training programmes on the system, participants‟ satisfaction levels of the training programmes, performance of the advocates, responsiveness of the service desk, and problems encountered by users of the system. A questionnaire survey approach coupled with interviews was adopted for the study. Data from the survey were largely analyzed using descriptive statistics. From the study the level of usage of GIFMIS in Accra was ascertained and prevailing challenges associated with the usage were also found. Findings from the study point to a very significant rise in the number of Procure to Pay (P2P) transactions over a period of one and half years. The P2P system was user friendly although there was need for improvement. Ninety five (95) people, on average, were trained in every training session. Participants in the training programmes were satisfied but not with all the segments. The trainees were „ill-at-ease‟ in report generation and period end processes of the system. The advocates were doing most of the work in the MDAs. In most of the MDAs the personnel involved in P2P analysis did not practice data entry and report generation processes after the training sessions. Performance of the advocates was satisfactory. Responsiveness of the service desk was also satisfactory. Problems associated with the use of the system were also iii outlined. It was recommended among others that more training be provided on period end processes and report generation, the personnel involved in P2P analysis in MDAs should gradually be weaned away from the advocates, and the space between the list of transactions and total amount on the cheque be reduced.
Description
A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Building Technology, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of a degree of Master of Science in Procurement Management.
Keywords
Citation