SIL eBudget solution successfully running at Ministry of Finance (Mauritius)

SIL’s eBudget solution for the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development of the Republic of Mauritius has been running successfully with all functions this year – and with performance monitoring as from Semester 2 – after partial implementation in 2015.

More than 80 ministries and departments of Government are now connected to the system based on that solution. The latter is a powerful tool for automating the budgeting and planning process for Performance Based Budgeting in the context of establishing a Fiscal framework.

The core Budgeting function has been successfully used in real situation for the first time, for preparing the 2016/17 national Budget of the Republic of Mauritius. During this process, the solution has been used for inputs regarding Recurrent and Capital Investment Projects Expenditure and for establishing a Medium Term Expenditure Framework. Projections for revenue and for borrowing were generated by the SIL solution. The necessary tools were also used in connection with approval of Budget and for transferring Budget from the e-Budget to the Treasure Accounting System.

SIL staff provided 6 months of assistance to personnel of the ministries and departments using the solution, hence helping users to smoothly and efficiently evolve from the former manual system to the computerised process for the latest Budget.

The solution was implemented in two phases. First, the software for Financial Resources functions (the ones regarding Core Budgeting) as well as the adequate hardware, were installed and made to run in 2014. During that same phase, Release2 of the solution was implemented in 2015 – allowing for transition from Programme Based Budgeting to Performance Based Budgeting. The second phase consisted in implementing the Performance Monitoring functions, as from this year.

The benefits of the eBudget solution by SIL are numerous and include, inter alia, Process Automation and better control on budget bids submission, Reduced time taken in preparing the Budget, Improved accuracy of plans and forecasts, better sharing and analysis of data, integration with other systems and with existing MS Office software, as well as full data security.