Minister of Finance Peggy Serame has stated that the ministry is aware of the operational challenges that face the Government Accounting and Budgeting System (GABS) platform and that they are working to resolve them. Serame said this in a statement to the national assembly yesterday, November 9.
GABS is an Oracle E-Business Suite solution comprising an automated premier financial system used to manage the execution of the government budget by processing financial transactions covering receipt of revenue, payment of suppliers and public officials as well as the compilation of Government financial accounts. The system, originally implemented in 2004, manages government employees' payroll, pensions as well as payments to supplies, among others.
According to Serame, although the system has been down for a cumulative 33 days between 1 January 2022 and 31 July 2023, on 11 August 2023, it encountered a serious technical challenge that prevented it from executing requests including travel requests, creation of Government Purchase Order (GPO), processing of payment vouchers and general updating of the accounts payable modules.
From the technical side it showed that the system was consuming a lot of processing power (CPU) to the extent that users could barely transact," said Serame. "These challenges have adversely affected the execution of financial transactions especially payment to suppliers of goods and services as well as printing of annual tax certificates."
To address these issues, Serame said that the Ministry of Communications, Knowledge and Technology have noted this working to normalise the situation and find a permanent solution. In the interim, the ministry has implemented a controlled access plan by establishing a user roster, to ensure continued processing of receipt of revenue and payments to suppliers. Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) have also been advised that they should in addition to the automated environment keep manual receipt books for use in case the system experiences functionality challenges.
According to figures, GABS system has a total user base of about 27,000 with a daily peak usage level of 5,000 users.
Image source: Sunday Standard