The Kurdistan Regional Government is this month rolling out a fully digitalised system to control operational expenditure. This modernisation step will increase efficiency and reduce corruption by ensuring that all government day-to-day expenditure is completed online.
Minister of Finance and Economy, Awat Janab Noori, commented: “This progress is part of the government’s broader package of modernisation and reform measures, reducing bureaucracy to allow the government to better serve our citizens. Increasing transparency in government, and reducing corruption, are essential components of these reforms. The more the government can control its operational expenditure, the better positioned it is to spend on vital public services and projects that benefit all citizens. I commend staff in the Department of Information Technology and the Ministry’s Directorate General of Public Accounting for building the application.”
The new digital system will be rolled out across government departments this month and the whole of the KRG will be online by the end of July with all data being recorded in the government’s own data centre. It will ensure that the KRG will be able to record savings made from spend requests for operational goods and services, providing the government with real-time visibility over its budget so data from the system can be used to make better strategic financial decisions.
It will also help to establish stronger financial management processes across government and to ensure that individual ministries are held accountable for their spending, as well as reducing unnecessary bureaucracy and the time it takes for entities to receive their requested goods or services, provided the request meets the spend controls criteria.