Sources said that in order to ensure timely and reconcilable information on government expenditures, receipts, domestic debt and external debt, the data on these transactions needs to be captured into the SAP based Financial Accounting & Budgeting system (FABS) of the government, in a timely manner. This data needs to be captured from both the bank end, where the actual cash transaction takes place, as well as from the entity through which the transaction is generated.
Such data could be captured through interfaces of FBAS with the relevant entities, or through extension of SAP system itself to the relevant entities, or else through access to a portal of the entity concerned. The key entities with which interfaces, extensions of SAP system, or portal access need to be implemented are the State Bank of Pakistan(SBP), National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Central Directorate of National Savings (CDNS), Economic Affairs Division (EAD), Corporate Finance (CF) and Provincial Finance (PF) branches of the Finance Division (FD).
The Finance Division further informed that the said division is in process of developing an integrated IT system among the subject offices of federal government with the assistance of DG (MIS/FABS) at controller general accounts (CGA) office. In this regard, a series of meeting have been conducted among all stakeholders and considerable progress has been made towards implementing an integrated system ensuring accuracy and timeliness of the data collection.
The latest status of the implementation of interface has been provided to this division along with the identification of the necessary action and required support from the subject offices. The recommendation and progress on establishment of interface revealed that the activation of interface has already been developed between FABS and Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for in time capturing of tax receipts.
The FABS team has already developed an interface with the FBR database for capturing tax receipt data. An optic fibre link has been established that connects the database of FBR with the SAP based database of FABS at AGPR, Islamabad. Tax receipts data that is entered into PRAL system of FBR at designated branches of National Bank of Pakistan/State Bank of Pakistan, becomes part of FBR database, and through the interface can be captured in the SAP system at FABS in real time.
A reporting structure for capturing daily transaction data of tax receipts from the FBR/PRAL database has also been designed and shared with the FBR. Once FBR agrees to providing information on the shared reporting structure, the interface of FABS with FBR will become functional.
Activation of SAP system has already been extended to corporate finance/provincial finance wings of Finance Division for punching of direct releases to SBP. The direct release to SBP made by Corporate Finance (CF) and Provincial Finance (PF) wings of Finance Division currently do not get captured into the SAP system in time. Intimation of these releases currently gets faxed to SBP by the concerned CF and PF branches, and gets reported to the accounting system at a much later stage. Lately, the FABS team has extended the SAP system to CF and PF branches by making it available on the workstations in those branches, configured format of fax messages into the system, and provided requisite training to the concerned staff.
This extension of SAP to the concerned CF and PF branches of FD will ensure that the releases are first punched into the SAP system by resources at the respective branches, and letters get printed out of the SAP system for onward communication of releases to SBP through fax. Once necessary instructions for punching all releases by CG and PF branches into the SAP system are issued by the FD, the described solution will become functional.
Web-portal based e-file made available by State Bank of Pakistan/ National Bank of Pakistan to be used for capturing bank data on transactions related to receipts, expenditures, domestic debt and external debt, sources said.
The State Bank of Pakistan has provided FABS with access to an electronic file that contains data pertaining to the government's daily bank transactions of receipts, expenditures, and financing instruments. Given availability of this file, there is no need for creation of a separate interface with SBP as requisite data planned to be accessed through an interface is already being captured in the stated file.
A similar file can be made available to the FABS by National Bank of Pakistan at a single portal, yielding data for receipts, expenditures, domestic debt and external debt transaction, segregated at transaction and bank branch.
The SAP system will be extended to Central Directorate of National Savings (CDNS) to capture transaction data on domestic debt. A predominant chunk of domestic debt related transaction data pertains to the National Saving Centres under the CDNS. Physical copies of the transaction challans generated at respective National Savings Centers, are sent daily to the twelve Regional Directorates of National Saving (RDNS). The data from RDNS is then sent to the CDNS main office where it is entered into FoxPro-based software, on a weekly basis. This data ultimately gets post-punched into the SAP system on 5th of every month. The SAP system therefore cannot report on domestic debt related transactions during the month.
To improve timeliness in availability of domestic debt data in the SAP system following measures can be undertaken: An upload programme can be developed through which the weekly data being entered into the FoxPro-based system at CDNS main office can be captured into the SAP system. For the purpose, based on agreement of CDNS, the FABS Directorate will make SAP system available on a dedicated workstation at CDNS main office and provide requisite training to the CDNS personnel.
Timeliness in capturing transaction data into the SAP system can be further improved, from weekly to daily availability of data, by providing SAP system on workstations at the 12 RDNS offices and ensuring punching of daily data being received from NSCs into the SAP system. Given agreement of CDNS to this arrangement, the second phase can be launched immediately.
Given that the CDNS management is planning a complete shift towards an IT-based environment over the next two years, by computerising transaction recording at NSCs and interlinking all NSCs with CDNS mains office through an intranet. Once full conversion to an IT environment is accomplished, the FABS can build an interface with the integrated IT system of CDNS to capture real-time transaction level information from CDNS.
Extension of SAP System to Economic Affairs Division (EAD): Currently accounting information on external debts and foreign assistance comes from EAD to the AGPR quite late, by the 25th of the subsequent month, and cannot be made part of monthly accounts which are finalised by 10th of the month. It is recommended to place a SAP terminal in accounts branch of the EAD so that foreign assistance transactions pertaining to federal government gets recorded immediately on receipt at EAD.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017