Public Financial Management training for govt officials launched

The Government Friday launched advance training in Public Financial Management (PFM) for its officers with an aim to enhance their capacity on public sector finance.

Rajendra Prasad Nepal, financial comptroller general, inaugurated the one-year Advance Diploma Course on PFM.

The Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) under the Ministry of Finance, Nepal Administrative Staff College (NASC) and ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) England are collaborating for the training which has been launched for the first time in the country.

“ACCA will supply resource persons for the training and NASC will provide logistics support while PEFA’s role is coordination, facilitation and monitoring,” informed Bhuban Prasad Kafle, member secretary at the PEFA Secretariat.

The PEFA is a framework for strengthening public expenditure system of a country. Its core objective is to enhance expenditure management of the public funds and reduce associated fiduciary risk.

ACCA is the global professional accounting body offering the Chartered Certified Accountant qualification – ACCA or FCCA. It has 178,000 members and 455,000 students in 180 countries.

According to the PEFA, 25 government employees from the Office of the Financial Comptroller General Office, PEFA, National Planning Commission, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development, Ministry of Irrigation, Office of the Auditor General, Department of Forestry, Commerce and Supplies ministries, Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority and Water and Energy Commission Secretariat are participating in the training.

The course includes areas of accountancy, management accounting, financial accounting, performance management, financial reporting and financial management, said Kewal Prasad Bhandari, coordinator of PEFA Secretariat. “It also aims at updating the participants on professional ethics and International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS).”

“The PEFA has long been planning for capacity building of government officials on public financial sector. We hope that this training will help to reform the PFM,” he said.

Multi-Donor Trust Fund Manager at the World Bank Franck Bessette stated that the PFM was about prioritizing two things: system and people.

“The government has improved the system but the capacity of the employee was yet to be enhanced. So the best thing has happened now,” he said.

Saying that the course would introduce various dimensions of PMM, Nepal expressed his hope that it would bring changes in PFM and people working for it.