With schools reopening for the new year we are guaranteed yet another stampede as administrators suddenly wake up to the fact that textbooks that were budgeted for have not been delivered. Corruption would probably have contributed to the diversion of funds for the provision of these, but a far bigger structural and systemic reason for hiccups in service delivery is the use of outdated and inefficient tools of planning, budgeting and measurement. As the GDP and population of a country grow, so does the fundamental necessity for robust ICT platforms to increase administrative effectiveness and efficiency, transparency and accountability, to promote an honest government. Making headlines before the festive season was the controversy surrounding the integrated financial management system (IFMS) implementation by the government. This is an IT-based budgeting and accounting system that manages spending, payment processing, budgeting and reporting for the government departments and other ...

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