As part of the reform programs of the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC), the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) has initiated a Public Financial Management Reform Program (PFMRP) and it was officially launched in December 2004. This program aims to improve the good governance and transparency in the National Budget Management especially in the national budget expenditure with the improvement of the standards of management and accountability in the effective mobilization of all government current and capital resources.

The PFMRP, which is one of the government strategies for developing its country, consists of four main platforms: (i) improving budget credibility; (ii) improving financial accountability; (iii) improving budget policy linkages; and (iv) improving performance accountability. The first platform (Budget credibility), the goal was successfully achieved according to the plan and this led forward to the second platform “improving financial accountability” launching in 2008. Within the second platform, FMIS (Financial Management Information System) project is formed as a core element to fully support PFMRP.

The FMIS project with its main task is to improve information both financial and service performance. In order to ensure success of FMIS project, Information Technology Department of the Ministry of Economy and Finance was created to handle as it is an essential project in Cambodia which will transform all the financial processes from  mainly manual system supported by some subsidiary systems built to support some operations in some areas of MEF to electronic system (Computer based) and this will affect the current structure of Ministry of Economy and Finance.

In 2008, MEF as receiving guidance from World Bank experts was tendering for a full big scale FMIS which covers General Ledger, Procurement, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Treasury Management (and Cash Management), Budget Module, Fixed Assets and Inventory, as well as Reporting and Interfaces.  The scope of the system was also designed to bring finance and budget staff of all line Ministries, provinces, districts etc on line to the system.  However, in the late 2011 the tender was terminated as there were some problems with the awarded supplier of FMIS system during contract negotiating process. Therefore, MEF, getting advice from the World Bank, was tendering for a small scale FMIS Treasury System implementation, so called “Treasury System Project”, primarily in the GDNT and the Provincial Treasuries.  Also, smaller scale Budget Execution responsibilities will be set up for relavent key MEF’s General Departments and Departments.

The Contract

The contract was finalized in December 2013 for a full turnkey (hardware, software and services) supply from FPT-FIS LG CNS Joint Venture to implement Oracle Corporation’s PeopleSoft Financials, a Commercial, Off-the-Shelf financial management information system.

The contractors have commenced work.