The Treasury has introduced a costing tool on the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) in changes meant to place a tight lead on expenditure by ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) in the financial year 2024/25.
IFMIS, an Oracle-based enterprise resource planning system, is used at both the national and county levels of government to enhance accountability and transparency in spending.
“To support standardised costing of programmes, a costing tool has been developed within the IFMIS budgeting module to estimate the budget baseline. The budget baseline will comprise requirements for ongoing policy, new approved policy and verified pending bills," the Director of Budget at the Treasury, Francis Anyona, said.
All MDAs are now expected to provide their budget baseline for the period July 2024 to June 2025 by September 5 in compliance with the new adjustment, as the Treasury kicks off the 2024/25 budget preparation process.
According to the 2023 Budget Review and Outlook Paper, expenditure for the current financial year has been set at Sh3.83 trillion, up from the Sh3.75 trillion passed in the June budget.
“The National Treasury has been conducting comprehensive training on the new system to all MDAs. MDAs are expected to provide the budget baseline through the IFMIS system by C.O.B September 5, 2023, in line with the Budget Calendar,” Mr Anyona said.
Adjustments to IFMIS were part of the fifth review of Kenya’s programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which was concluded in July.
Another change expected in the system before the close of 2023 is the ability of MDAs to capture multi-year commitments. Currently, the system captures annual commitments which lapse at the end of a financial year.
Multi-year commitments are effectively accounted for in an accrual accounting system and would be able to spread across financial years giving greater visibility on spending plans.
“By end-December 2023, enhance IFMIS to enable registration of all multi-year commitments in IFMIS. Submit to Cabinet and update PFM regulations 2015 that require MDAs to register multi-year commitments in IFMIS. The National Treasury will issue guidelines requiring MDAs to submit their planned commitments for the 2024/25 budget in line with the 2024 Budget Policy Statement ceilings”, the IMF stated in its report following the conclusion of the fifth review.
The National Treasury has set June 13th, 2024 as the date when the National Treasury Cabinet Secretary will read the budget speech before the National Assembly with the expenditure for the next financial year currently estimated at Sh4.01 trillion.
