Aspects of government's long-awaited Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) are set to be rolled out to "selected" government departments in the new financial year, which starts in April.
According to National Treasury's Estimates of National Expenditure, published this afternoon to coincide with the yearly budget speech, the human resource module of the IFMS continues to be implemented at the Free State education department and at the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA).
The State IT Agency (SITA), a unit that falls under DPSA, is rolling out the programme. It was initiated in 2005 in a bid to replace current legacy transversal applications used in government, such as the Basic Accounting System, the Personnel and Salary System (Persal) as well as the Logistics Management System.
During the current financial year, which draws to a close at the end of next month, work started on developing an interface to Persal to eliminate double capturing. Treasury's documents indicate that "the system" will be rolled out to other selected departments in 2013/14.
A treasury official explains that the rollout, part of a trial phase, includes the financial management and procurement aspects. He says the system is almost at the point at which it can be widely rolled out, although feedback still needs to be provided to Cabinet.
Spending in the DPSA's IFMS sub-programme increased between 2009/10 and 2011/12, due to the development and implementation of the human resources management module of the integrated financial management system.
According to SITA's latest annual report, in 2010/11, the IFMS project team built and configured five of the nine modules that make up the complete solution. These are asset management, procurement management, master data management, catalogue management, and human resource management.
The asset management module was implemented at two lead sites: National Treasury in March 2010 and Limpopo Provincial Treasury in May 2010. Other rollout sites included the Department of Agriculture, Department of Local Government and Housing, and the Department of Roads and Transport, where the asset management module went live in the first quarter of 2011.
In February 2011, the HR management module for the public service at the DPSA was launched.
SITA's revenue is expected to increase "significantly" over the medium-term due to the anticipated increase in the number of products offered by the agency and the expansion of services to local government in response to the single public service policy, notes the budget document.
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