The Central Treasury Management System
The Financial Administration and Audit {Amendment} {No.2} Act, 2010 Section 48I and Cabinet Decision dated May 18, 2009 authorised the implementation of a Central Treasury Management System (CTMS to replace the existing cash and treasury management systems in Government. The system actually beganoperatingon November 1, 2012 on a pilot basis. It is currently being rolled out to all ministries and departments. This process is expected to be completed by June 2013.
The CTMS is a technology driven set of procedures that transfer the responsibility for managing Government’s cash resources to a single agency i.e.the Accountant General’s Department.
The current cash management system is fragmented and characterised by numerous bank accounts containing idle cash balances.These bank accounts are in many instances dormant and not readily accessible. Despite the cash in these accounts, the Government ends up borrowing more than it should, to meet budgetary shortfalls.
The CTMS is designed to improve public sector treasury and cash management systems making it more efficient and effective.There are two main aspects to the system. These are
- Execution of MDAs’ payments
- Consolidated Fund Revenue Reporting
Execution of MDAs Payments
The CTMS involves the operation by the AGD of a Treasury Single Account (TSA) at the Bank of Jamaica replacing MDAs’ expenditure clearing accounts which are held at commercial banks.
Under the new system, MDAs are required to submit to the AGD electronically through their Finman accounting software, requests for the payment of their bills and other expenses.
Notwithstanding the above,ministries, departments and agencies (MDA) continue to be responsible for the procurement of their goods and services as well as the processing of their payments up to the point where they normally would draw a cheque. At this point, they instead, electronically send a request to the AGD for the payment to be made through direct transfer to the payee’s bank account.
Once a payment is executed by the AGD,the MDA and the payee are advised accordingly through an automatically generated e-mail message sent by the system.
