Timor-Leste Government: Public Finance Management will provide public access with the click of a button

The Secretary of State for the Council of Ministers and Official Spokesperson for the Government of Timor-Leste Agio Pereira January 22, 2010Dili, Timor-Leste - Public Finance Management will provide public access with the click of a button

The Council of Ministers has just approved amendments to the procurement juridical regime to further enhance the responsibility of each ministry to undertake due processes to ensure successful budget execution at all levels.

The changes establish a new Technical Secretariat and a Commission which includes members of the civil society to directly oversee the procurement processes. The next steps of reforms will include changes to the treasury and free balance regimes.

The Xanana Gusmão government plans to make a major and decisive move to make public financial management of Timor-Leste one of the most transparent in the world.

The Government has been in discussions with FreeBalance, a global provider of software solutions for public financial management to provide further support for the modernization of Timor-Leste’s public financial management systems.

Secretary of State Pereira said “The next generation of public financial management technology will allow the public to track the budget live, to see where every dollar is being spent, and to gain renewed confidence in the process.”

As part of the Public Financial Modernization and for strengthening governance and transparency, the Government of Timor-Leste is going to implement the e-Procurement System which allows the citizens to scrutinize what the Government is procuring and who is being awarded, at the same time this will promote local economic development and better expenditure management by creating more vendor awareness.

Pereira noted ‘This state of the art technology will be a major step in providing transparency and accountability to Timor-Leste for this Government and all future Governments. The Government of the day will have immediate access to accurate data to prepare for future budgets and to provide a thorough archival system for country wide analysis. These initiatives will be a major advancement in the Xanana Gusmão Governments anti-corruption measures.”

While other countries have made progress with public financial management, Timor-Leste is looking to take advantage of the next generation of comprehensive and integrated web-based solutions to meet the requirements of the nation. Such systems not only provide public access to real time information but also the ability to link financial data with the Objectives of the Government; which can be tracked to the outcome and results of any given budget allocation.

Pereira concluded by saying “This major step in transparency will eventually eliminate much of the speculation over budget allocations, budget execution rates, project implementation and provide exact data in real time to the public. The project will be a challenging technical undertaking; but an important initiative for the people of Timor-Leste to take ownership of information on how public money is being managed while enhancing and safeguarding quality control.” ENDS