Henri Loundou, the cabinet director, representing Calixte Nganongo, Minister of Finance and Budget, officially launched the pilot phase on the use of the Integrated Public Financial Management System (SIGFIP), in the four pilot Ministries, Monday, April 8, 2019 in Brazzaville. 

During two days, from Monday 8 to Tuesday 9 April 2019, nearly 150 government officilas of the four pilot Ministries, including the Ministry of Interior and Decentralization, the Ministry of Energy and Hydraulics, the Ministry of Construction, Urban Planning and Housing, and finally the Ministry of Finance and Budget, took part in the workshops. “Other Ministries and institutions will be gradually integrated into the SIGFIP process, based on the experimentation outcome of pilot Ministries, hoping to provide all public central administrations with full coverage latest 30 June 2019”, Henri Loundou said

The participants followed in turn the theoretical part of the lessons provided by the director of Accounting Decentralization (DCC), Saturnin Ipodo-Nzingou, and deputy head of the SIGFIP project. The technical part, led by the head of this project, Marius Ikolo-Ngakosso, assisted by designated computer engineers.

For Saturnin Ipodo-Nzingou, it is not enough to present, for example, the new legal framework and the outline of the new chain of public expenditure. It is mainly to explain to Administrative and Financial Directors (DAF), Credit Managers, Heads of Financial and Material departments, as well as Heads of Accounting departments “the raison d'être of the SIGFIP computer reform, the challenges of this one and what we gain from it” …

An interactive review  

The peculiarity of these teachings is that they are immediately followed by exchanges, questions-and-answers tests. For instance, at the end of the theoretical part of the first and the second day of the workshop, the participants, after reviewing the concepts of the various training courses, as such: “the presentation of the legal framework of the reform; the presentation of the new normal circuit of expenditure, the presentation of the circuit of expenditure in pilot mode, (administrative phase) ; demo of expenditure execution (accounting phase), the presentation of e-learning”,“the Expression of need” (EN), “the Authorisation of commitment” (AC) and  “the Payment credit” (PC),were invited to discuss and answer by “true” or “false”, if “the founding Act of expenditure is invoice”.Of course, the answer is “false”. “The funding act of the expenditure is the commitment and not the invoice. The expression of need is only the zero stage”, Corrector Marius Ikolo-Ngakosso said.

The Press office of the Ministry of Finance