At a conference in London, in 2006, donors pledged USD 5.7 billion to Yemen. But, although approximately 83 percent has already been allocated to specific development projects, by the end of 2009, Yemen had still only received less than 10 percent of these pledged grants, according to the World Bank
Donors have complained that the government has not been using the grants for their specified purposes. But, with this electronic disbursement system, Yemen will attempt to ensure grants are properly channeled to the right projects and donors will be encouraged to meet their pledges.
The system, formally called the Loans and Grants Management Information System, will accelerate the implementation of pledges made at the 2006 London donors' conference, Minister of Finance, Noman Al-Suhaibi, told journalists last Monday.
Adopting this system is part of the monetary and administrative reforms taken by the government to enforce transparency and accountability, he said.
The system has already been put into place in three project implementation units at the Ministries of Health, Education and Agriculture, according to Al-Suhaibi, who added that he hoped it would soon be used in all 30 of the government's project implementation units.
The minister explained that the system basically links all units in charge of implementing government development projects with the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Yemen.
He said that it will accelerate the rate Yemen receives external loans and grants, and improve the country's capacity in absorbing foreign funds. This will, in turn, speed up the implementation of development projects in different sectors and will benefit the society and state together, according to the minister.
The new software is expected to reduce the time spent by project contractors to withdraw from the Central Bank of Yemen (CBY), via the Ministry of Finance and the project unit, from 35 days to only five days, Jubran Muraish, financial officer at the Education Development Project at the Ministry of Education, told the Yemen Times.
Incentives for donors
Muraish, who prepared a study of the system for his master's degree at the Business Administration Center at Sana'a University, said that if the system is applied effectively, it will greatly encourage donors to support Yemen more, and prevent them from moving their grants to other countries.
The new system is a tool used by the government to manage change, resulting from the financial crisis, he said. After the financial crisis, donors might feel reluctant to meet their pledges and this requires the Yemeni Ministry of finance to adopt new financial mechanisms to contain these changes and convince the donors to fulfill their promises.
He added that the system will also indirectly help the Yemeni riyal to restore some of its value against the dollar, because when Yemen receives these grants, more dollars will be present in the Yemeni market.
Yemen's economy has also been suffering from the decrease in oil prices, causing the government to reduce its budget for the current year by 50 percent. These increased external funds will help decrease such negative impacts, according to Muraish.
He said that applying the system in other project units might only meet some opposition if employees were opposed to change and were against abandoning the traditional manual systems that they are used to.
Towards an e-government
The Loans and Grants Management Information System was fully prepared and developed by a Yemeni team through using the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication or SWIFT.
With this new system, the Yemeni Ministry of Finance will be the third Arab ministry in the Middle East using the SWIFT system, after Jordan and Oman.
The CBY, on its website, said that the bank's governor has publicized the Ministry of Finance's SWIFT code to all commercial banks.
The new system is a starting point towards an electronic government, or "e-government", using the Internet and telecommunications to transform relations with its citizens, businesses and other government sectors.
The new IT system will encourage contractors to bid for development projects funded by external pledges because it will be faster and less costly, according to Muraish.
The system comes within the US Agency for International Development (USAID)- funded Enhancing Government project in Yemen.
---
Autor(en)/Author(s): Ali Saeed
Quelle/Source: Zawya, 25.05.2010
Bitte besuchen Sie/Please visit:
