Cows and Television: Rolling out a New System for Financial Management Information in Cambodia

The World Bank
Saroeun Bou



On a recent visit to provincial treasury offices to learn about the Financial Management Information Systems, or FMIS, that our Governance teams helped introduce, the conversation became about cows.

The learning curve for an institution accustomed to managing public finances the manual way – that is, with papers and pens – to switch to an automated state-of-the-art system was, some treasury staff said, comparable to bringing a cow to watch television. Cows, they explained, are as unfamiliar with television as some treasury staff are with computers, the internet, and FMIS.

Fortunately, the relevance of the analogy was short-lived. It was soon clear that treasury staff can overcome the learning curve and that the new system has been helpful. I consistently heard praise about the system’s usefulness, because it provides useful financial information, reduces the amount of repetitive work, and generates timely reports. That is a big change.

“I’m so proud to have this system,” said Sivon Khemarun, the director of Battambang’s provincial treasury. “We want to use a system that is up to the standards of those used by developed countries.”

“We tried our best to make sure we make full use of the system, despite these difficulties,” said Touch Kunthea, the head of the Oddar Meanchey provincial treasury. “It is important for us, and for all people.”

There were other obstacles besides the learning process. The FMIS was installed at provincial treasuries in early 2016, yet it was not in full use until January this year. Some treasury offices chose to run the new system in parallel with the older, paper-based method until the end of last year – even though it led to twice as much work and delays in the processing of payment orders.

Today, the FMIS is working in all 25 capital and provincial treasury units, thanks to the Public Financial Management Modernization Project, an initiative co-financed by a trust fund from the European Union, Sweden, and Australia, and administered by the World Bank. The objective of the project is to improve the management of public finance by strengthening revenue mobilization and the processes of budget execution. The system is capable of generating a wealth of information on the management and deployment of the government’s financial resources across an array of programs and projects.

That is not to say everything is working perfectly. Certain issues still need to be addressed. Additional training to refresh newly acquired skills would be helpful, as would additional equipment such as computers and printers. Better collaboration with commercial banks and clients would also help.

The second phase of the FMIS, which will be financed through budget support from the European Union, will help the Ministry of Economy and Finance to address these issues and to roll out the program to other government agencies. The analogy of cows and televisions may return, but not for long – a new era in the management of public finance in Cambodia has begun.