The office of the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) says it is
upgrading the Government Integrated Financial Management Information
System (GIFMIS) to ensure payment of December salary before Christmas.
The
Director of Funds in the office, Mr Mohammed Dikwa, stated this in an
interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja on
the sideline of a one-day workshop on the Treasury Single Account and
e-payment/collection.
Dikwa said that the system would be shut down over the weekend for the upgrade.
“The
essence of the shut down is for maintenance. Some people complained
that they couldn’t have access over the last few weeks because of the
queue management challenge.
“We want to upgrade the
infrastructure that we have over the weekend so that by Monday next week
all payments will go on smoothly.
“If you look at the trend,
people find it difficult to have access easily because the
infrastructure was not strong enough to effectively handle the queue
management.
“But with the new improvement, the system will be
easily accessed, there will be seamless transactions, and people will
get their money before Christmas particularly salaries and other
financial commitments of government.
“I want to assure all
Federal civil servants that, God willing, they will get their salaries
before Christmas because we will try as much as possible to pay the
salaries before that time.
“We hope to have the Federation
Account Allocation Committee meeting much more earlier and that will
give us the room to have more money into the consolidated revenue of the
federal government that will be used for the purpose of paying salaries
and other commitments of government as far as this financial year is
concerned.’’
Earlier at the workshop, Dikwa, who represented the
AGF, Alhaji Ahmed Idris, said that the maintenance was to enhance the
capability of the system to address the issue of queue management and
other associated operational challenges.
NAN reports that GIFMIS
is an information technology based system for budget management and
accounting that is being implemented by the federal government.
The
aim is to improve public expenditure management processes and to
enhance greater accountability and transparency across ministries and
agencies.
In her remarks at the workshop, the acting Head of the
Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs Wilnifred Oyo-Ita, said the
workshop was an opportunity for stakeholders to deliberate on the
challenges associated with the TSA implementation.
Oyo-Ita, who
was represented by the Permanent Secretary in her office, Mr Yemi
Adelakun, said that the outcome of the workshop would provide the much
needed feedback for policy evaluation and review.
NAN reports
that the workshop was organised by Jk Consulting Company Limited in
collaboration with the Office of the Account-General of the Federation.
It
participants included senior account officers and internal auditors of
ministries, departments and agencies of the federal government. (NAN)
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