Efforts to Implement a Financial-Management Information System in Iraq

摘要

In early summer 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and the International Monetary Fund conducted assessments that identified a need for improvements in the Government of Iraq's (GoI) budget and financial control system. These assessments found that the GoI financial structure provided limited ability to monitor Iraqi ministerial budgets and expenditures, leaving the ministries vulnerable to fraud, waste, and misappropriation of funds. According to a senior advisor with the CPA, 'the Iraqi Ministry of Finance had been completely looted and burned...There were no computers.. Everything was paper intensive.' The CPA, which then managed the budget, conceived the Iraqi Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) as a solution to manage and oversee the GoI budget. According to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), when instructed by the CPA to implement an Iraqi financial management information system, it entered into a broadbased contract with BearingPoint, Inc. for that purpose. That contract had numerous other tasks related to economic and financial reforms. IFMIS represented only a small part of the total effort and estimated cost under the contract, which was known as Economic Governance I (EG-I). In September 2004, USAID awarded to BearingPoint a follow-on contract for the continuation of the economic and financial reforms. That contract, known as Economic Governance II (EG-II), continued to fund IFMIS, which again was only a small part of the total effort and cost. Both contracts were cost-plus-fixed-fee level of effort.