Treasury’s IFMIS trains 4,000 suppliers on e-procurement to boost efficiency

The National Treasury has concluded a three week countrywide training for entrepreneurs. This will equip small and medium businesses with requisite knowledge to undertake online procurement.

Treasury through the Integrated Financial Management Information Systems (IFMIS) Department trained more than 4,000 suppliers of different goods and services to Government agencies on IFMIS e-procurement.

The suppliers are mostly small businesses and the training was carried out across all counties in the last three weeks. It is expected to enable suppliers participate in tender processes online as all Government agencies adopt e-Procurement.

Speaking in Nairobi during the Government of Kenya Supplier Sensitisation and Training Forum, IFMIS Director Jerome Ochieng said the exercise is critical in enabling State agencies and their suppliers adopt the automated procurement and payment system.

IFMIS e-procurement has been deployed to all ministries, departments, State agencies and corporations and the 47 counties. It seeks to increase transparency and accountability in management of public funds.

“It is essential for suppliers to understand and make use of the system because going forward, procurement will only be undertaken through the system,” he said.

“With the e-procurement system, streamlining of the entire government procurement process is achievable with the aim of sealing loopholes which are erstwhile prominent in the manual process.”

“The overriding advantages of the IFMIS system are efficiency and transparency. The system allows users to post and process transactions in real time. This saves time and minimises errors.”

Other than the IFMIS e-procurement module, Ochieng said Treasury has also rolled out the planning and budgeting module that ensures a procuring entity can only purchase what has been approved and within stipulated budget.

 “The deployment of IFMIS in Kenya has been a success in improving public financial management. We do receive delegations from other countries seeking to benchmark their public finance systems with our own IFMIS. This is proof that we are indeed on the right path,” said Ochieng.

County government officials also attended the training forums, where they urged suppliers to embrace  e-procurement system.

The officials from devolved units included finance executives, chief officers, heads of supply chain management and procurement officers. Nairobi drew the largest number of participants in the county supplier sensitisation and training forums, with more than 2,000 registered suppliers in attendance.

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