Some of the biggest corruption scandals in the past decade have taken place right under the nose of the system—or despite the system—hence the urgent need for it to be strengthened.
The security and integrity of the system will never be fully assured so long as the people operating it are not honest.
The introduction of the Integrated Financial Management System (Ifmis) at the Treasury was meant to cut off corruption cartels that were siphoning billions of shillings from the exchequer annually.
It has, however, not been the success it was meant to be as crooked public officials have repeatedly found ways of extracting bribes to facilitate payments.
Some of the biggest corruption scandals in the past decade have taken place right under the nose of the system—or despite the system—hence the urgent need for it to be strengthened.
This is why the latest efforts to introduce new tools into the system that will further automate the payments chain are welcome and must be implemented fully with speed.
There remains an elephant in the room, however. The security and integrity of the system will never be fully assured so long as the people operating it are not honest.
Therefore, the new reforms on Ifmis must not stop at introducing new software and tools, but must also include an audit of the Treasury’s accountants and procurement officials who handle it every day.
Those found to have facilitated corrupt deals, or demanded payments from creditors in order to allow payments to proceed must be culled from the system.
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