Plan to update public financial management reform strategy

The government has planned to evaluate performance and spot gaps in its previous financial expenditure and management reforms, officials said.

"We've initiated a move to identify gaps and evaluate performance in different financial reform activities such as public expenditure, accountability and financial management reform strategy of the government carried out earlier," a high official of the Ministry of Finance (MoF) said.

"It will be helpful in taking and fixing next reform projects relating to public expenditure and financial management if we can prepare an assessment report and update the existing reform strategy," he said.

Under the initiative, the government is going to prepare the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) assessment report through technical assistance of the World Bank (WB) aiming to take next reform projects in public expenditure management.

Officials said the Public Financial Management Reform Strategy-2006 will also be made up-to-date soon after completing the PEFA assessment report.

An official of the MoF said a formal discussion was held with the WB about preparing the PEFA assessment report and update the Public Financial Management Reform Strategy. The WB has agreed in principle to provide technical assistance to the initiatives.

A request letter will be sent to the WB seeking technical assistance for the initiatives through the Economic Relations Division (ERD). A proposal in this connection has recently been sent to the finance minister for his approval, he said.

The government took an initiative to reform the overall financial management in early 1990. The reform activities of the financial management had started that the year through preparation of the "Committee on Reforms in Budgeting and Expenditure Control (CORBEC)" report. The basic fields of the public financial management reforms had been identified by the CORBEC, according to the MoF.

Later, projects titled "Reforms in Budgeting Expenditure Control (RIBEC)" and "Financial Management Reform Programme (FMRP)" were prepared for the periods of 1992-2002 and 2003-2009 respectively.      

The PEFA assessment report was prepared in 2006 and 2011 with the technical assistance of the WB. Public Financial Management Expenditure Reform Strategy had been prepared by the MoF during the implementation of FMRP.

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