Dr Ken Ngangan

Department Secretary, Dr Ken Ngangan, said Finance will now move away from cheque writing to more oversight and monitoring of how public funds are being managed.

According to Dr Nganan, the Finance Department will step up on its monitoring role, checking how money is being spent at the agency level, provinces and districts.

“Starting this year the Department of Finance and DIRD will now be visiting the provinces and districts ensuring that DSIP and PSIP are well spent according to the plans sent in for funding support.”

Finance Secretary Dr Ken Ngangan says there will be no exception for extensions; closure will be on Monday, 4:06pm.

Dr Ngangan told this newsroom that for the last few years, the Finance Department had been relaxed, which resulted in lax measures.

However, this year will be different as strict measures are in place to monitor this.

He added that now that all government departments are on Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS), it makes his job much easier as he will just switch the system off and all balances will be reverted to zero.

“It is welcoming to see stringent requirements are now in place to document, validate, verify and authenticate Government cheques by way of Purchase Orders, Authority to Pre-commit Expenditure (APC) or an Integrated Local Purchase Order and Claim (ILPOC), to assure accountability of Government spending,” the organisation said in a statement.   

“This is an important step to strengthen the existing procurement process and limit the abuse of the proper procurement process.”

The PFMA 2016 replaces the PFMA 1995 following a review spearheaded by the Department of Finance.

The PFMA was amended in Parliament in August 9 this year and will officially come into effect in January 1, 2017.

Earlier this year, Finance Secretary, Dr Ken Ngangan, said a review of the PFMA was to correlate the country’s economy and to ensure Government accountability, transparency and efficiency.

“The systems that were in place 20 to 25 years ago were systems that were put in place to manage about K500 million budget.

The event is seen as the premier forum for the discussion of research and analysis relating to economic and public policy issues on PNG.

This years forum theme is ‘Sustaining development beyond the resources boom.’

The provisional program has indicated key speeches from Secretary for Finanace, Dr Ken Ngangan, Bank of PNG Governor, Loi Bakani, and Minister for National Planning, Charles Abel.