Councils operating on expired Ifmis

Details have emerged that government is not practicing what it preaches on adherence to public finance management system as councils are still using the outdated Integrated Financial Management Information System (Ifmis) since 2020.

Malawi Local Government Association (Malga) confirmed the development, saying the system was last updated in 2014.

The revelation came to light in a presentation by the National Local Government Finance Committee during a meeting with Ministry of Local Government and councils on the Efficacy of Local Authorities (LA) Financial Management in Mzuzu last week.

The presentation showed that councils have continued to use the expired Serenic Navigator accounting software, which even Microsoft Corporation stopped supporting in 2020.

The presentation warned councils that they face an inherent risk of system disruption because of the expired system which it said “is dangerous to government funds”.

It further showed that there is lack of Local Authorities Ifmis connectivity, indicating that while the government originally intended for a robust network where data processing should be in real time, this never happened.

The document reads in part: “The local area network [LAN] in the councils connects the district commissioner or chief executive officer offices to the data centre of the councils.

“This means the rest of the people or directors have to leave offices to approve transactions in Ifmis in the data centre at the headquarters.”

The presentation said the situation leads to frustration and leads into non-system-based approvals.

“Due to the old and worn out ICT infrastructure, most servers in many councils are not working properly. The NLGFC, as the main hub ICT centre for local authorities, does not have any data-disaster plan in place. Information could be lost data consolidation is done manually,” it further reads.

The authorities volumes of funds it handles through the system has increased from K3 billion in 2001 to K411 billion in the 2022-2023 Budget, according to Malga.

Malga executive director Hadrod Mkandawire the expiry of Ifmis is due to termination of contract with system supplier TechnoBrain.

He said: “There is no expertise and no backup services. The system has not been upgraded since 2014, meaning, for eight years now, councils are using the old version of Serenic Navigator.

“In councils where the system is down, there is no immediate support from the centre.  There have been efforts to link local Ifmis with central government Ifmis, but nothing has been done on the ground.”

Mkandawire said so far councils are using the new central government Ifmis to process the payment of salaries.

“But we are yet to use it for other payments. Therefore, as the umbrella body of local authorities, we are calling for the government to address this problem,” he said.

Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee chairperson Shadric Namalomba said with such levels of laxity, the country will not be able prevent fraud in local councils.

He said the practice only shows that the country is not serious in combating mismanagement of funds.

“The fact that we are using two separate systems to manage our resources is in itself a dangerous thing.

“The two systems are also independent of each other. This is really dangerous for public resources,” he said.

Ifmis is the Malawi Government’s electronic payment platform designed to check loopholes in payments in the public sector.