Practical Strategic Uses of GFMIS

The report highlights the significant progress made by Egypt in implementing the GFMIS and TSA, including the closure of approximately 61,000 disparate accounts and the launch of electronic processing of payments through the GFMIS. The GFMIS and TSA can bolster the strategic interests of the Government of Egypt by improving controls over expenditure and debt while maintaining social spending. The systems can also enhance the efficiency of infrastructure investment and promote relations with the private sector. The report outlines the major ways the TSA and GFMIS benefit decision-making, including improved reporting, cash management, controls, transparency, speed, innovation, and budgeting. The GFMIS is a management tool that provides a way to support future reforms and does not just automate current processes and meet current requirements. The report will touch on some of the strategic uses of the initial systems and the potential future extension of the systems to support the Ministry of Finance and broader Government strategic goals and reforms. The Ministry of Finance in Egypt has set out clear strategic policy objectives, including ensuring control over expenditures and debt, ensuring efficient infrastructure investment, and promoting relations with the private sector. The GFMIS can support meeting these strategic goals by providing better controls over expenditure and debt, improved budgeting, and enhanced transparency and accountability. The report highlights the benefits of the GFMIS and TSA in meeting the Ministry of Finance's strategic objectives, including: 1. Ensuring controls over expenditure and debt, while maintaining social spending, through commitment recording, reporting on execution of social and other priority programs, reduced costs of borrowing, and improved budgeting. 2. Ensuring efficient infrastructure investment for economic gain through improved budgeting and cash management. 3. Ensuring encouragement of and promoting relations with the private sector through improved transparency and accountability, and enhanced cash management. The GFMIS and TSA have the potential to improve the quality of work through automation, reduce the opportunity for bribes, and encourage donors to move onto Government systems. The report concludes that the GFMIS and TSA can support the Ministry of Finance and broader Government strategic goals and reforms, and can be further extended with modules covering procurement, cash forecasting and planning, budget preparation, and performance monitoring, among others.