Afghanistan: Second Public Financial Management Reform Project, TF 10024 December 2, 2012 Aide Memoire A Bank team] carried out a regular supervision mission of the Second Public Financial Management Reform Project (PFMRII) during October, 2012 and held meetings with the heads of all implementing agencies2 and their advisors. The findings and recommendations of the mission were approved at the PFMRP Steering Committee meeting of November 26, 2012. The team expresses its appreciation for the excellent cooperation and support extended by the officials of the Government of Afghanistan (GoA) throughout the review. I. MAJOR ISSUES Due to lack of progress on improving auditing standards and the significant delays in the implementation of project activities related to external audit and development of the accounting profession, the implementation progress of the project is considered Moderately Satisfactory. For these same reasons, full achievement of the project development objectives are is threatened and therefore the PDO rating also downgraded to Moderately Satisfactory. The major issues that require close attention and prompt action by the Government to ensure that implementation progress is improved and the reforms and development results are achieved are as follows: Extension of Closing Date: The second tranche of the project funding - US $13 million of funding of the project proposal - was approved by the ARTF Management Committee at the meeting of May 27, 2012. The related activities (the line ministry audit support (SAO) and the Professional Accounting Association support (MOF)) are now a year behind schedule. It is therefore necessary to extend the project closing date to December 31, 2015. Internal Audit: Access by Internal Audit (IA) of MOF to other line ministries has now been ruled out by an amendment of Article 61 of the Public Finance and Expenditure Management Law whereby IA of MOF no longer has responsibility for the internal function across government . To ensure progress on the PDO and the PFM Roadmap, IA of MOF will redirect resources under the component to build independent capacity in five key line ministries. The team comprised Messrs./Mmes. Paul Sisk (Task Team Leader), Janis Platais (Consultant - FM), Mike Jacobs (Consultant- Audit), Ali Hashim (Consultant - IT), Rahimullah Wardak (Procurement Specialist), Asha Narayan (Sr. Financial Management Specialist), Wali Ahmadzai ( Financial Management Analyst) 2 Director General of Treasury, Director General of Internal Audit Department (IAD) of the Ministry of Finance (MoF); the President and Directors of the Supreme Audit Office (SAO); Director of ARDS; Head of the Procurement Policy Unit (PPU); the MoF RIMU Coordinator Article 61. Audit Powers of the Ministry of Finance: 1. The Ministry of Finance shall establish an internal audit administration and appoint auditors to audit the financial and accounting affairs of all State administrations. 2. The auditors referenced in paragraph one may require the relevant administrations to provide all information needed for auditing financial affairs. 1 External Audit: Progress towards providing assurance on government's use of funds is lagging. It was agreed that the enactment of the new Audit Law is necessary as well as improvement in practices by the SAO because the Qatia audit report for SY 1389 was not in accordance with ISSAI reporting standards. External Audit Component Expenditure: An amount of Afs 739,000 was paid towards incentives to 181 staff of the SAO. The SAO needs to provide justification and relevant and complete documents in support of these payments otherwise the expenditures will be considered ineligible and will be required to be repaid to the Project's Designated Account. II IMPLEMENTATION OVERVIEW Procurement Reform Procurement Facilitation: The centralized procurement oversight provided through ARDS is now reliably applied (Budget Circular PPU/C022/1387 and PPU/C044/1391). It was agreed that ARDS will use the e-procurement facility under its MIS to carry-out at least one purchase per month to encourage use of this procedure among suppliers in the country. Capacity Building: Training in SY 1391, in collaboration with the Afghan Civil Service Institute (ACSI), was delivered to 314 persons in the center and 699 in the provinces. Training under ASCI was halted in 2012 because arrangements for continuing operations were not agreed. The mission requested that the PPU take action to establish an alternative for procurement training delivery in Kabul. It is noted that ACSI made no progress in becoming a certified provider of training by CIPS. The PPU has completed the database of staff who have received PPU-sponsored training; this will aid tracking deployment of human resources. The database is now on the PPU's website with details of 2,600 of the 4,000 staff trained. It was agreed that the details of the rest of the staff would be entered by January 2013. Support to the Line Ministries: Support under both the Procurement Capacity Building Officers (PCBOs) and Procurement Controllers (PC) activities is being carried out in line with the project plans. However, only 11 PCBOs are in place; 19 more must be selected to cover the full range of line ministries. Similarly, while the results framework for the Procurement Controllers has been prepared it is yet to be applied. It was agreed that the framework would be put in place for the new fiscal year. Also, recruiting specialists to key line ministries for temporary capacity in procurement is behind schedule. To date, PPU has mobilized only 28 out of the 50 Procurement Specialists planned. The process of selection of the remaining specialists is underway and will be completed by the end of December 2012 Strengthening Procurement Regulation and Oversight: The institutionalization of the PPU is underway; the SY 1391 tashkeel for the PPU posts has been submitted to the IARCSI along with the TOR with the understanding that the positions will be filled through a competitive selection process. So far only 8 out of 30 civil servant positions have been filled. The current PPU consultants' contracts have been extended to the end of the project to ensure a good overlap and handover to the civil service. The draft amendments of the Public Procurement Law were submitted by MOJ to the Cabinet for approval. PPU contributed to the draft; however, it is not informed of the final version of the amendments. It was agreed that MOF would provide the Bank with a translation of the 2 version approved by Cabinet. To support the implementation of the law, PPU will prepare a procurement manual once an international procurement expert is on board. As noted in the last mission Standard Bidding Documents are now approved and published on the PPU website for use by the government entities, however the translation of SBD to Pashto is still pending, as well as some in Dari. It was agreed that translation services would be hired immediately. Transferring Procurement Capacity and Responsibility: Institutional development assessments are proceeding in line with the project plans - 13 ministries were completed between 2009 and 2011 and 8 will be completed in SY 13914. Implementation of plans toward accreditation, however, is lagging as only three ministries (MOE, MAIL and partially MOPH) were accredited prior to SY 1391 and 3 more in SY 1391 (MOUD and MEW and MOLSA). Developing PMIS: The PMIS development is now completed. The PMIS manager has resigned and the mission noted that the selection of new manager is underway. Social Accountability: The PPU has made three attempts to hire an international consultant but without success so it was agreed to revise the TOR for the position and to hire a national consultant for this activity. The revised TOR will be shared with the Bank. Financial Management Reform Treasury Operations: Treasury continues to carry out timely transaction processing and accounting tasks, through AFMIS, to meet the MoF and donor requirements. Internal controls are improving and cash forecasting requirements are also being met. Treasury's performance was not affected by the gap between contracts of the Financial Management Consultants following the withdrawal of Deloitte in March, 2012; year-end was successfully executed and the SY 1390 Qatia (annual budget accountability statements) was sent to Parliament on time. With a view to further improving the control environment, Treasury decided to transfer the SDU accounting cell to the Accounting and Reporting Directorate; leaving only core payment processing responsibilities in SDU. This transition is expected to be implemented in the next fiscal year. Recent staff turnover has resulted in the delays in reconciliation of accounts, postings, and resolution of outstanding items in AFMIS. Treasury has not been able to prepare IPSAS compliant financial statements for SY 1390 because of perceived technical obstacles with the treatment of letters of credit covered by special commitments by donors. It was agreed that Treasury would resume efforts to prepare IPSAS compliant statements for the central government for FY 1391. This would include finalizing the reporting arrangements for letters of credit, special commitments and disclosure of third party payments in the IPSAS statements 2009: MRRD, MOPH, Public Works, MOE, MEW, MAIL and MOE; 2011: MOUD, MOHE, MOM, MOCIT, MOCI, and Ministry of Counter Narcotics; 2012: Ministry of Haj and Islamic Affairs, Ministry of Women Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Information and Culture, Ministry of Labor and Social Affair Martyr and Disable, and Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation. 3 To complete the control framework, employees should be made aware of their control responsibilities through more documentation of processes and training. It was agreed that Treasury would prepare a timetable for documenting the business processes, including the control requirements for staff and managers, and communicating these control responsibilities to the responsible staff and to carry out the related training. Support for Business Processes and Organizational Change: Treasury does not have a dedicated unit for managing internal benchmarks related to its development plans and operational capabilities. It was decided that to establish such a unit, develop related procedures and appoint staff for this function. Financial planning by line ministries now includes detailed in-year flows of funds which are used as the basis for full year allotment for nine line ministries. It was agreed to continue close cooperation with the Budget Department to extend these flows to 20 more ministries in SY 1392 and to use these for full year allotments. Treasury has completed preparations for linking AFMIS with DAB Afghanistan Clearing Settlement System (ACSS). However, the DAB facility does not yet support connectivity of AFMIS to ACSS. The project of developing and implementing an electronic interface between AFMIS and DAB systems got underway in October 2011. The electronic payment interface with DAB is a priority for systems development in 2013. Under the Verified Payroll Program (VPP) over 500,000 government employees are receiving their salaries via direct deposit to bank accounts. This is supported by the use of computerized payroll systems: the Ministry of Interior uses the EPS -system supplied by LOTFA, other ad hoc systems are used in MOEd and MOD, while all other ministries use a MS Access based system (Computerized Payroll System (CPS)) provided and supported by MoF. An upgrade of the database for CPS to SQL is underway to enable an integration of individual databases in the Treasury, using the AFMIS communication network, which would enable backup, data warehousing as well as establishing centralized tashkeel (establishment) controls for payroll. It was agreed to continue with extension of government salary direct deposit to employee bank accounts through the Verified Payroll Plan (VPP) processes and to evaluate payroll systems operated in the Ministries of Interior, Defense, and Education with a view to introducing the data warehousing of the payroll data and some centralized payroll controls in the Treasury. Business Continuity: A temporary (cold) Emergency Operations Site (EOS) and a Permanent (hot) EOS are necessary to support business continuity. The cold site has been set up at an alternative location and equipped with servers and workstations to enable central operations. The RFP for the hot EOS is being reissued because of the poor response in the first attempt. Related to this, Treasury is expected to complete the equipping and transfer of its AFMIS data center to new premises in early 2013. Access and Enhancement of AFMIS: Both access to and enhancement of AFMIS are progressing. Special focus has been placed on the areas where the transactions can be processed in AFMIS at the point of origin of transactions thus using the full system control framework. Currently all expense vouchers in the center are prepared in AFMIS by respective line ministries. Treasury is interested in developing business processes for transaction processing in multiple currencies specifically for the development budget operations and would like AFMIS to support this. FreeBalance has supplied the Treasury with a modification to its core financial accountability module to allow producing checks in any currency from bank accounts denominated in different currencies. However, the general ledger and budget controls in AFMIS are kept in Afs so Treasury maintains a number of subsidiary records. This business 4 process which allows different elements of the same transaction to be entered in different currencies e.g. budget allocation and release in one currency, and commitments and payments in another is a very special situation and it is not clear whether any packages (like Oracle or SAP) would be able to accommodate this without modification. Since Freebalance has not responded positively to MOF's interest in this development, Treasury has agreed that the Financial Management Consultant (GIZ) would investigate possible changes/ work-arounds to see if changes in the business process could accommodate this special multi-currency requirement. Development budget payment processing in provinces is not done through AFMIS in view of the complexities posed by fund accounting. However, Treasury has instituted a commitment based manual control mechanism to ensure proper processing of development transactions by the Mustofiats. Processing of transactions through AFMIS by the Mustofiats would eliminate manual records however feasibility of this proposition needs to further investigated in view of the complexity posed by accounting by funds and banking arrangements at Mustofiats. Although the share of development budget expenditures in Mustofiats is less than 5% of total development expenditures it was agreed to carry out a feasibility study and devise a plan to extend the facilities for processing development budget transactions in provincial Mustofiats through AFMIS. The organizational structure of the AFMIS Unit has not yet been implemented in line with the adopted IT strategy. A manager for the AFMIS Unit is yet to be identified and FMC staff have been filling in. The staff of the AFMIS Unit do not have specifically assigned permanent duties and there is no backstopping arrangements. It was agreed to implement a new organization structure for the AFMIS unit, to assign specific responsibilities to the staff to facilitate their specialization and learning and to implement backstop staff for specialist positions. Seamless Integration and New Modules: The implementation of the Performance Budgeting (PB) module supplied by FreeBalance was not successful. The module could not ensure satisfactory data exchange and implied system stability risks. FreeBalance provided an upgrade of the financial accountability (FA) module to cover the key functionality of tracking budget changes. Treasury is pursuing with FreeBalance the necessary upgrade to implement the required functionality. Treasury should determine whether the PB module functions better under an integrated FreeBalance Version 7. Policies and procedures must be developed to support the implementation of the FreeBalance Purchasing and Asset. Since FreeBalance is now promoting its Version7, the future support of the current version is therefore uncertain. To determine the viability of V7, it is agreed that FMC should develop a test script of transactions for V7 and do a test run to see whether the complete set of transactions and core processes can be met with the new version. On the basis of the results future development can be determined. Human Resource Capacity Development Sub - Component Internship Program: To date, 27 staff in the center and about 50 percent of trainees/interns in provinces from the trainee/internship program have joined the civil service, but this rate is insufficient to ensure an adequate supply of capable and motivated individuals for the core civil service in Treasury. To improve the intake to the civil service, changes are required in the training offered to the trainees and improvements must be made in job descriptions and selection panels for advertised vacancies. The Treasury is restructuring its staff plan as part of the transition of the SDU accounting and reconciliation tasks to the Directorate of 5 Accounting and Reporting and on this basis it will design the training plans for interns and civil servants. Education Reimbursement Program: The education reimbursement facility serves as an important lever to encourage staff to stay with Treasury and provincial Mustofiats. It was agreed that a tracking system of all Treasury staff would be established to follow eligibility for education reimbursement benefits, education received, results and where applicable, recoveries from staff resigning before completing their duties to the MoF according to the terms of the education benefits agreement.. Training Organized by the Treasury. Duty specific training is directed at Treasury staff, line ministry staff, and Mustofiats staff. Five regional training coordinators have been appointed and 165 trainings sessions in the center and Mustofiats have been given in SY 1391. However, HRCDP does not maintain current year training plans and most training is conducted on a demand basis which does not allow systematic implementation of the broader training strategy and capacity gaps to be addressed. It was agreed that rolling training plans will be established based on the Treasury training strategy and skills gap analysis. Treasury Communications Plan: Treasury has been working towards communicating control requirements for financial management and making key financial information available to users. The key sources of the requirements on financial management compliance are the written communications from the MoF. It was agreed that Treasury would make available the key reference documents on the Treasury website, explore other avenues of communication for the agencies and individuals who do not have access to the web and open the channels for internal communication in the Treasury. It was also agreed to hire an international communications advisor. Audit Reform Internal Audit: Implementation of the internal audit project activities is satisfactory and has continued to improve in scope and quality since the last implementation support. Expansion of training to line ministry internal audit units is under preparation through the Audit Training Program. Well conducted internal audits have improved oversight by MoF of line ministries but only in the miscellaneous revenue functions. However, given that the amendment of Article 61 passed by the Parliament, in 2012, which limits the purview of MoF IA to its own ministry, it has been agreed that a plan will be developed to redirect resources under the project Audit Component to supporting the internal audit units of 5 major line ministries to bring these up to acceptable standards. Strengthening line ministry's internal audit functions will improve the executive oversight of the use of public funds and enable further delegation of financial management duties under AFMIS PFM to line ministries. To effect this change, a full assessment of IA Unit competencies and IA structures in the chosen ministries is needed. External Audit: There has been limited progress in improving the PEFA rating for external audit (P26). The annual budget execution statement (Qatia) is not audited to any acceptable standard and does not provide assurance as to whether expenditures for budget operations are in line with intended purposes. The audit of the SY 1390 Qatia account was, however, supported through some testing of the correspondence of the Qatia with the accounts of the budget units. Similarly, compliance audits are not published. 6 Implementation of the Direct Audit Support for grant audits activities was reduced in the period between November 2011, when the PKF Consultants' audit agent contract expired under the PFMR project, and June 2012 when the new audit agent, S. N. Nanda Company, began operations under PFMR II. Audits of 21 of the 45 due were completed on time. The mission reviewed the related audit working papers and reports and considers that the quality needs improving It was agreed that some of this was caused by the tight deadlines. There has not yet been sufficient progress in English or technical skills to enable SAO staff to conduct grant audits without extensive support. SAO has agreed for its staff to progressively be more engaged in the full range of the grant audit processes to build their knowledge and to use the audit manuals and checklists prepared under PFMR to produce an adequate set of working papers to provide evidence for the audit findings. For increasing SAO staff involvement in grant audits, the SAO Training Director will set out a path for training adequate numbers of SAO staff to acceptable standards of English to be able to support the grant audits. The Direct Audit Support Line Ministries sub-component is behind schedule because of the delay in the approval of funding for this component. The Request for Expressions of Interest has been now been issued. This component, however, is premised on the independence of the SAO through the enactment of a new audit law so this development will be watched closely before the contract is let. SAO reliance on the support of contracted auditors and trainers is affecting its ability to become self-sustaining. It was therefore agreed that there will be no further expansion of the use of local advisors. Also, it was agreed that that access to AFMIS, with appropriate IT support, should be established in the SAO to contribute to this development. Training programs in the SAO are based on a needs analysis of March 2009. The PKF Final Report noted that the training provided by the Project was not integrated as part of the process of staff development but was more a series of independent training events that responded to an immediate need. Earlier support visits (e.g. June 2008) recognized that ad hoc training will not bring the SAO staff to the level of competence to conduct audits to international standards and that more formal training and certification should be pursued through participation in formal programs offered through the recognized accounting and auditing professional bodies and training institutes/. It was agreed that the SAO Training Directorate will, with the assistance of the Advisor to the Auditor General, take on a full training role and identify master trainers and training specialists among the SAO staff to initiate a self-sustaining development as part of an update of their training plan LTDP and training calendar. Public Accounts Committee Strengthening: Preparations are underway for a study tour in 2013 for all the members of the sub-committee of the Budget and Finance Committee, which is acting as a PAC, to Canberra to see the working of a Parliamentary Accounts Committee first hand. Reform Management Reform Implementation Management Unit support to human resources reforms and monitoring and evaluation in MOF is progressing in line with project plans. 7 IlI. Project Procurement Procurement administration under the project for the period is rated satisfactory as procurement action has been initiated for large value contracts on time for the majority of the contracts. The quality of filing is also good. Nevertheless, the following actions were agreed. RIMU will send an update of the procurement plan to November 30, 2012 to the Bank. The mission also reminded all relevant implementing entities that no capital goods and consultants which are not part of the agreed procurement plan would be given a NOL by the Bank. The mission again discussed the seriousness of the FY11 Post Procurement Review (PPR) findings and informed RIMU that if a satisfactory response is not provided to the Bank then remedial action may be considered. The mission also informed RIMU that the MOF response in relation to the FY12 PPR findings on the selection of the procurement analyst is not satisfactory. RIMU agreed to provide responses by November 6, 2012 to both of these points. IV. Project Financial Management Financial Management arrangements are rated as moderately satisfactory because of the following issues which need management action: i) An amount of Afs 739,000 was paid towards incentives for 181 staff of SAO. Prima facie these payments appear to be ineligible expenditures under the project financing agreement; however, SAO needs to provide relevant and complete documents in support of these payments. The eligibility or otherwise of these payments will be established after review of the additional information. It should be noted that if these expenditures are considered ineligible then the amounts must be repaid to the project designated account. ii) Advances paid from the designated account in SY1390 by the Treasury Department and PPU were yet to be acquitted at the time of the mission. This indicates weak internal control over tracking and acquittal of advances. The SY1390 advances need to be acquitted and the internal control tracking of advances strengthened to ensure timely acquittals. iii) Periodic bank reconciliation and advances reconciliation are not done for the designated account and the advances paid out of the DA. Action to be taken to ensure regular reconciliations. iv) There were instances of cash payments for more than US$ 1,000. This leads to risk of theft of cash, and all payments for more than US$ 1,000 should be made through check or bank transfer. Paul Sisk, TTL PFMRII, November 26, 2012 8 ANNEX 1 TABLE OF AGREED ACTIONS TASK DEPT. DUE 1 Use the e-procurement facility under its MIS to carry-out at least one ARDS On- purchase per month to encourage use of this procedure among going suppliers in the country. 2 PPU must establish an alternative for procurement training delivery in PPU Jan 31, Kabul now that ACSI has severed relations. 2013 3 Enter details for the remaining staff would have received procurement PPU Jan 31, training into the training data base. 2013 4 Select and recruit 19 more PCBOs to cover the range of line ministries. PPU Jan 31, 2013 5 Put in place for the new fiscal year the results framework for feedback PPU Jan 31, from the Procurement Controllers. 2013 6 Contract an international consultant to prepare a Procurement Manual PPU Jan 31, to support the implementation of the new Public Procurement Law. 2013 7 Arrange for the translation of SBDs to Pashto (and Dari??) PPU Jan 31, 2013 8 Provide the WB with a translated version of the Cabinet approved PPU When Procurement Law Amendments. Ready 9 Revise the TOR for the international advisor and develop TOR for a PPU Dec 31, national advisors for the Social Accountability activity and share these 2013 with the World Bank. Complete implementation of the plan for the consolidation of the 10 accounting function under the Accounting directorate, including the MOF March transfer of the accounting cell from SDU. The work should take into Treasury 31,2013 account the communication needs for the transaction processing and ept. address the needs for coordinating activities with the donors. Resume efforts on presenting government financial statements MOE April following the IPSAS standards on a cash basis. Develop formats for the MOF April presentations with adequate disclosures. Treasury 30, 2013 Dept. Adopt a realistic timetable for documenting all business processes, MOF Jan 31, 12 Adp a elsi'ieal o Treasury 2014 1 (except for the IT unit), including the control requirements for the staff Tear 2 9Det. 9 TASK DEPT. DUE and managers, as well as effectively communicating these control responsibilities to the responsible staff. This should include training in the use of the Accounting Manual. . MOF Mar 31, Strengthen the assurance function in the Treasury through appointing Treasu1 13 gTreasury 2013 separate staff for ensuring compliance with control arrangements. The Dept. assurance staff should report directly to the DG. MOE On- Maintain as top priority the development of the electronic payment 14 interface with DAB to enable direct interface of the AFMIS with the Treasury going ACSS in the implementation of the Afghanistan Payment Systems Dept. ongoing project in DAB financed by the World Bank. .MOE On- Continue with the further extension of government salary direct deposit Teu Ong to employee bank accounts through the VPP processes. Special Dept attention should be given to the evaluation of the payroll systems Dept. operated in the MOI, MOD, and MOEd with the view to introducing the data warehousing of the payroll data and some centralized payroll controls in the Treasury. MOE Jan 31, Engage an ICT equipment supplier for the hot EOS. Treasury1 16 Treasury 2013 Dept. .. MOE Mar 31, Investigate possible changes/ work-arounds to see if changes in the Treasury1 business process could accommodate the multi-currency requirement. Dept. Dept. Adopt a plan for extending the facilities for processing development MOE Sep 30, budget transactions in provincial Mustofiats. The plan should cover Dept. the documentation of the procedures prior to the piloting and D implementation; . . MOE Mar 31, Implement a new organization structure for the AFMIS unit, assign Tr specific responsibilities to the staff to facilitate their specialization and easury 2013 learning and implement backstop arrangements for specialist positions. Dept. Develop a test script of transactions for FreeBalance V7 and do a test MOE Mar 31, run to see whether the complete set of transactions and core processes Treasury 2013 can be met with the new version. Dept. Proceed with the ongoing effort to adopt additional functional modules MOF On- 21 with the functionality of Purchasing and Asset Management. Treasury going __ Dept. Expand intern training to provide them with the knowledge necessary MOF Mar 31, 22 for joining the civil service and successfully integrating in the Treasury 2013 10 TASK DEPT. DUE organizations charged with the government financial management. Dept. Hire a human resource management specialist on HRCDP to assist the MOF Mar 31, 23 Treasury complete core human resource management tasks, including Treasury 2013 securing better entrants for civil service jobs, completing the human Dept. resource management procedures, hiring and separations, enabling regular and timely staff performance assessments. Assess the long term staffing needs of the Treasury assuming that the MOF June 30, 24 civil servants would take over the tasks from interns and consultants Treasury 2013 and adjust the organization structure accordingly. Dept. Establish a tracking system for recording the eligibility of staff to MOF Mar 31, 25 1 Treauy 21 receive education reimbursement benefits, education received and easury 2013 where applicable recoveries from staff resigning before completing Dept. their duties to the MoF according to the terms of the education benefits agreement. Develop rolling training plans according to the Treasury training MOF Mar 31, 26 strategy and skills gap analysis to improve allocation of scarce Treasury 2013 resources and better targeting of the capacity gaps. Consider the role of Dept. quizzes and testing for the purposes of improving the motivation of training recipients to secure the necessary subject area training certificates. Make available reference material on the Treasury website (both MOF On- 27 through the internet for external users and the intranet for staff of the Treasury going Treasury) to facilitate the dissemination of financial management Dept. requirements. Explore other avenues of communication to ensure that the agencies MOF On- 28 and individuals without access to the web can get easier updates on Treasury going changing government financial management requirements and Dept. understand their responsibilities in this respect Open the channels of internal communication in the Treasury through MOF On - 29 regularizing management meetings and exchanging information on the Treasury going progress of implementing priority activities and process the Dept. appointment of an international communications advisor. 30 Present a plan to redirect Project resources of the Audit Component to MOF IAD Jan 31, support capacity building of internal audit in 5 specific line ministries. M D1, 2012 11 TASK DEPT. DUE 31 SAO staff to progressively be more engaged in the full range of the SAO On- grant audit processes to build their knowledge. going 32 The audit manual prepared in PFMR should be applied to grant audits SAO On- and working papers properly referenced to audit objectives and tests. going For increasing SAO staff involvement in grant audits, the SAO On- Training Director will set out a path for training adequate numbers of SAG SAO staff to acceptable standards of English to be able to support the going grant audits. Install AFMIS terminals in the SAO and progress with the support of a SAG Jan 31, technical IT consultant to guide SAO staff in data query processes. 2013 SAO Training Directorate to take on a full training role and identify 35 master trainers and training specialists among SAO staff to initiate a SAO Jan 31, self-sustaining development path for SAO staff as part of an update of 2013 the LTDP and Training Calendar. Update procurement plans and procurement monitoring plan to RIMU Dec 31 36 November 30 and send to the WB for its record. 2012 Provide full details and proper response with evidence for the Post RIMU Nov 37 Procurement Review findings of FY11 and of FY12. 2012 Project to provide satisfactory justification and supporting SAO Dec 38 documentation for incentive payments made to 181 staff of the SAO 2012 (civil servants). Advances paid out from the designated account in SY1390 should be Treasury Nov 39 acquitted and the internal control tracking of advances to be & PPU 2012 strengthened to ensure timely acquittals. Periodic bank reconciliation and advances reconciliation should be RIMU/ Monthly 40 done for the designated account (DA) and the advances paid out of the Implement DA. Units 12