Budget Management Information System (PBMIS) is an integrated solution for the preparation of facility comprehensive plans and budget covering use of goods and services, employee compensation, and capital investment at the Ghana Health Service (GHS) for all sources of funds. The PBMIS has the following functionalities:
- It supports strategic priority setting and alignment with local priorities.
- It aligns BMC plans and budgets to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) charts of accounts with an enhanced interface for easy capturing of data to the MoF budget Hyperion.
- It is used to generate various budget management and implementation reports that is used to inform allocative efficiency in budget formulation and implementation.
- It has the potential to evaluate the overall budget implementation processes and produce the needed budget and financial management implementation reports.
- It has a strong linkage and potentials for interoperability with other management and planning and budgeting systems (DHIMS 2, financial e-transactional tools, Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System)
Challenges:
- ICT Infrastructure (Hosting)
- Poor internet connectivity and cost of internet data
- Scaling up to all levels especially at the sub-national level
- Logistical challenges
- Human resource (inadequate Planning Officers at the sub-national level)
Future interventions:
- Migration onto the GHS data center being considered
- Even though an offline version has been developed, the cost of internet data for syncing facility budgets still remains a challenge
- Engage DPs to mobilize resources to deploy to the sub- district level
- GHS to provide logistical support for scaling up/ Mobilise resources through proposal writing.
- To recruit and train Health Planners to support the system
• There is the need for broad stakeholder engagement in the development of the tool to get their buy-in.
• Applicability for enhancing budget allocation to disease burden with dashboards.
• As much as possible use in-house resources to develop the system whilst engaging other stakeholders for scale up.
• Leverage for improving budgeting and management of internally generated funds.
• Develop local capacity to ensure sustainability.
• Ensure that system has strong alignment and integration with other management systems (Such as DHIMS2 and Health Sector Score Cards).
• Promote social accountability and social auditing with multi-sectoral perspective.
• Offline functionality reduces the cost of internet data and makes the system more stable.
• Institutionalize annual planning and budgeting capacity building.