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# More Effective Financial Management Information Systems

64. Once governments accept the above principles as a starting point, then the next step would be to install procedures to improve central expenditure control. At the heart of such procedures, and the prerequisite to more deep-seated reform, is a public accounting system which provides the timely, regular, detailed and accurate information necessary for expenditure monitoring and evaluation. This would nearly always require the installation of electronic data processing methods, since a manual operation would be unlikely to cope with the size and complexity of a modern government accounting system. The installation of electronic data processing should not, however, be regarded as a substitute for the institutional and procedural reforms which are necessary to permit any accounting system, whatever its technical sophistication, to work as intended. Among the preconditions for success are: (a) the existence of detailed budgets for all government departments, institutions and agencies (including the military and the presidency); (b) the existence of up-to-date files on existing personnel and detailed organigrams for each agency;<sup>24</sup> (c) an adequate system of reporting and review for monitoring the expenditures of all government agencies which depend upon the central budget; (d) proper procedures for ensuring adequate scrutiny of payments; (e) clearly delineated responsibilities among departments and their personnel; (f) a classification of the major items of revenue and expenditure consistent with a streamlined accounting structure; and (g) an adequately trained staff with sufficient incentives to remain in government service.<sup>25</sup> 65. A few other simple rules which will enhance the chances of successful installation of improved management information systems are:<sup>26</sup> (a) keep the system as simple as possible; (b) all the key players, in both core and line agencies, must understand the system and have an effective input in designing and improving it; (c) identify at an early stage what can be done given the short term staffing constraints and order the equipment accordingly; (d) apply the system as flexibly as possible since it is difficult, if not impossible, to be precise in advance concerning where new systems are likely to be most useful (elaborate feasibility studies are thus

- 24/ See B. Nunberg: "Public Sector Pay and Employment Policy Issues in Bank Lending: An Interim Review of Experience." PPR Working Paper (forthcoming) for an analysis of the difficulties involved in public sector manpower planning

- 25/ In Kenya it was found recently that nearly all statistical surveys processed by the Government's Computing Center could have been done faster manually. The root cause of this was unfilled vacancies for programmers and systems analysts because of better job prospects in the private sector. (See Clay G. Wescott: "Building Information Management Systems for Developing Countries," paper presented at a conference on Policy Aspects of Microcomputers in Developing Countries, National Research Council, Washington DC, January, 1988.

- 26/ Wescott: op. cit.