Contract Signed for New IT System for Efficient Use of Public Funds

The National Government launched today the P495-million contract for the Budget and Treasury Management System (BTMS) Project, a joint venture with Free Balance Canada and Innove Communications, a subsidiary of Globe Telecom, Inc.

The project– which will be implemented for 27 months– will develop, operate and maintain a new IT system that would link the public financial management (PFM) processes of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and the Bureau of Treasury (BTr), two of the key oversight agencies of the government. The system will go live in 2017.

Pursuant to the National Government’s Updated Public Financial Management Reform Roadmap, the BTMS would link the financial processes of the DBM and the BTr, helping collect and organize government financial information in a central database to support the following PFM functions: Budget Management, Commitments Management, Payments Management, Receipts Management, Cash Management, Accounting, and Fiscal Reporting.

Budget Secretary Florencio B. Abad said the BTMS Project will improve fiscal and budget management and strengthen the transparency and accountability measures implemented under the Aquino administration.

“Efficiency in the use of public funds is central to the administration’s goal of creating genuine transparency and accountability, which is a requirement for earning the trust of the citizens,” the budget chief said.

“The BTMS will complement the Updated PFM Roadmap strategy in emphasizing an incremental approach and consolidating progress around a number of key PFM reforms. As such, the new system will be embedded in critical areas like the budget management processes at the DBM and the cash management processes at the BTr,” said DBM Undersecretary and Chief Information Officer Richard Moya.

Moya said the BTMS will take its place as a pillar in the Aquino administration’s overall reform program, together with other reform initiatives: a streamlined reporting system, a functional Unified Accounts Code Structure (UACS), an operational Treasury Single Account (TSA), and an institutionalized Performance-Informed Budgeting (PIB).

“We’re still on track in building one of the keystones in the Administration’s program for fiscal transparency and accountability in government. On par with previous reform initiatives, we’re confident that the BTMS will hold up the integrity of our public financial management processes,” Moya said.

To streamline current financial systems, spending agencies will eventually use the BTMS as their framework for budget execution and accountability.

Source: www.dbm.gov.ph