Financial Times

e-Governance in action
While everyone was focused on the budget and its contents last week, the National Budget Department of the Finance Ministry issued a statement on the first successful e-government system that has demonstrated real value both to public and government officials, improving financial accountability in Sri Lanka. Excerpts:

With all the hype about e-governance, e-commerce, e-everything, and the numerous web-based services announced everyday, it is easy to miss some of the real successes - systems that have been developed and refined over several iterations to deal with important work processes, that leverage modern technology and are already delivering real value. The work of the National Budget Department (NBD) to modernise its cumbersome budget preparation and monitoring processes both in terms of meeting international budgeting standards as well as implementing dramatic improvements in automation, is a case in point. Its Integrated Budget System (IBS) which has supported the budget preparation process for the last three years is one of the most successful implementations of interactive e-governance applications in Sri Lanka.

Making maximum use of ADB Technical Assistance provided over a 3-year period and following up with its own limited resources thereafter, the NBD provides an example of what can be achieved with a consistent and determined approach that has continued, unwavering, through two changes of government.

With the assistance of a team of International and local consultants (PricewaterhouseCoopers) funded by the ADB, they completely re-vamped the existing budget processes and simultaneously developed a customised Integrated Budget System (IBS) - a state of the art web-based application that enables the Department to manage its process of budget preparation on an interactive basis with the various government agencies under its purview.

The IBS application which has been refined and developed specifically to meet the requirements of the users with each successive budget cycle and now provides a comprehensive suite of features that support the budgeting process from publication of the budget circular to printing of the budget book via outputs that feed industry-standard electronic typesetting systems. It is used to prepare the annual estimates under a medium-term budget framework in line with international best practice.

The budget circulars, a summary of budget allocations, the Appropriation Bill and final budget estimates are available on-line in all three national languages. The system also supports monitoring of budget execution, with the facility to set expenditure limits with alerts when expenditure reaches a pre-defined level, and the facility to revise budget forecasts, estimates or the approved budget, based on supplementary allocations or budgetary re-allocations. It is capable of electronic interchange of data with the present accounting system and takes into account long-term plans to integrate all financial management systems across government.

As with all e-enabled enterprises, the web-based application itself is but the tip of the iceberg and in some ways, the easiest part to get right. This project was a success because it was backed up by the implementation of a state of the art LAN connecting over 400 nodes and high-speed Internet access supported by a dedicated Network Operations Centre in the Ministry of Finance, comprehensive training programs to both internal and external users and continuing technical support. Interestingly, neither the IBS application nor the network were part of the original project outputs envisaged by the ADB. They were recommended, designed and implemented by the consultants.

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