The Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) approved by Cabinet in 2005, will only be fully implemented by 2019.
Speaking at the 7th annual Govtech conference yesterday, State IT Agency's (SITA's) product manager for IFMS Vernon John said the development and implementation of the system would have spanned 15 years by the time of completion.
The IFMS intends to replace the numerous disparate, inadequate and/or outdated systems currently employed by the public sector.
In its final state, it is expected to fulfil government's supply chain management, financial management, HR management and business intelligence requirements.
Integration backbone "We did experience challenges but a number of those have been overcome," said John.
He explained that progress has been made in several areas with regards to the system.
The Asset Management Module has been developed internally by SITA and implemented at National Treasury and four Limpopo departments.
Also, as part of its preparation to function as a prime systems integrator, SITA acquired an Item Identification application, developed a Master Data Management (MDM) application and a Catalogue Management module. The MDM is the backbone for the integration of all the other IFMS Modules, according to John.
He added that an Oracle commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) Procurement Management Module (PMM) has been procured, customised and is being implemented at National Treasury and the Department of Defence.
Also, a SAP COTS Module has been procured, customised and implemented at the Department of Public Service and Administration.
In addition, John said a Business Rules Mining sub-project was initiated to enhance user requirement statements and identify minimum functionality required from current legacy systems that must be provided for in the new solutions.
Augmenting capacity
Progress has also been made in that specifications for the development of other key modules, namely, payroll, finance and inventory management have been completed, said the product manager.
"In line with the Cabinet resolution of 2005, SITA has published tenders inviting industry to partner in the development of the Payroll and Finance modules. The finance tender has been awarded to Accenture and development is underway. The payroll tender is being adjudicated.
"The partnership arrangement is intended to utilise industry capacity to augment the core capacity currently within SITA."
John added that the development of a replacement module for the Vulindlela Data Warehouse has been completed with the assistance of industry.
Also, SITA has developed a product development method and an implementation methodology toolkit. It has augmented its implementation capability by establishing a database of industry implementation partners accredited by SITA.
During 2013, the agency aims to complete the inventory management, payroll, financial management and business intelligence modules that are outstanding.
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