CLGF as part of its financial sustainability program for LG’s has successfully implemented a fully integrated financial system and Billplus1system (BP1) for total automation of the manual financial system. The programs are cloud-enabled and can be used for automation with the remote councils once the internet connectivity and speed is improved.

The systems were successfully implemented at Betio Town Council (BTC), Teinainano Urban Council (TUC) and Kiritimati Urban council (KUC) will be implemented in January 2015. The Financial system was implemented at the Ministry of Internal affairs (MIA), who will be centrally administering and reporting for all the 23 councils.

CLGF fully scoped the project, which included implementation of financial system, billing system, licenses for 23 councils, N-computing servers, computers for each council, cabling, routers, training and post implementation support for 3 months.

The project was launched by the Vice President of Kiribati, Her Excellency Teima Onorio who is also a board member of CLGF. The vice president thanked CLGF for the support and assistance in the automating the financial process and strengthening the internal controls, which she said is a milestone achievement.

Her Excellency reminded the staffs of MIA, BTC and TUC, that this is just the first process and the successful continuation if the program will largely depend on the accuracy of data input. Her Excellency, also stated that the system is based on accrual accounting, which is in line with Governments plan to move from cash to accrual accounting treatment.

Her Excellency said she was happy with the modern cloud-enabled system and made her intentions known that she has a vision to see all the councils in the outer Islands connected to the system as well, via cloud technology in future which will only be possible through as reliable internet connection.

The project was implemented in partnership with a software company Infinityplus1 (IP1) based in Fiji and supervised by CLGF, which took seven months of preparatory work. The Billing system was built by IP1 especially designed for the LGs taking into account the nature of their business.

CLGF Regional Director, Ms Karibaiti Taoaba said that she was happy that project was successfully implemented and thanked everyone involved in the project. She also said that CLGF has a post-implementation plan, which will ensure that the system is properly used and full benefit of the automation and the reporting process is enjoyed by the LG’s.

Ms Taoaba said that it’s important for LG’s to have a good financial system and this will be the first step towards financial sustainability as good financial management will enhance the council’s ability for timely reporting and accurate data for good decision making ensuring better service to the community.

The implementation process was supervised by CLGF Finance Manager, Mr Shailendra Prasad, who said that whilst the system implementation provided full automation, it also strengthened the internal controls which will bring about a change of culture in the whole administration of finance.

Mr Prasad said that working with IP1, the software specialist was a great experience as building a system specialized for LG’s based on the requirements of the country can be a challenge. He commended IP1 and said that it was great working with a team of specialists who had their customers at heart and gave everything to ensure all requirements of the specification were met.

The implementation team leader and CEO of IP1, Mr Peniela Finekaso said he was delighted to have the project completed in a timely manner and that the system delivered as scoped by CLGF. He thanked all the stakeholders and said it was nice working with the staffs of MIA, BTC and TUC.

Mr Finekaso said that BP1 is a software built for LG’s as per scope provided by CLGF and there are many features in the system which can be utilized as per the needs of the council. He said the system is designed to take care of all the needs of the LG as their income stream grows and has a very robust business intelligence capability built into it for analysis and reporting.