United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

In Egypt, there are more than 2400 accounting units all over the country. Having this huge number of accounting units makes it hard to perform the following tasks in the manual system:
•Following-up the daily operations done in each accounting unit.
•Monitoring individuals’ productivity.
•Storing and retrieving enormous, and ever growing, amounts of paper forms and registers.
•Consolidating the monthly, quarterly and annual balances of related accounting units.
•Consolidating the monthly, quarterly and annual balances of the government.

There were several negative aspects regarding the Manual System:
•Re-entry of data for revision and monitoring which required more time, and, in many times, lead to inconsistency.
•Slow flow between offices and departments extending the work cycles.
•Difficulty in preparing consolidated reports and historical data in a timely and precise manner.
•The difficulty in archiving and retrieving data, given the huge amount of paper forms and registers.
•The huge physical space required to store the forms and the registers.

As a result, finalizing the fiscal annual closure report normally took up to 18 (eighteen) months after the end of each fiscal year. This resulted in misleading decision making and in providing inaccurate indicators prior to planning for next fiscal years. Moreover, accountability was questionable.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
The scope of this project is to deploy an automated financial application in 1600 accounting units (medium-to-large accounting units). The implemented system is unified throughout all the government accounting units in scope. This makes it easy to consolidate all needed financial knowledge through the government hierarchy to produce collective reports. The implemented system integrates all administrative data and processes used within an accounting unit into one unified system. Thus, streamlining processes and helping in sharing information as a mean to improve the internal administrative process within the government (G2G). The project is being implemented as a cooperation protocol between the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of State for Administrative Development. Until now, 300 accounting units were fully automated and operational. Currently, another set of 200 accounting units are under implementation (planned to be accomplished by the end of March 2009). Clearly, the automated system affected the operation time dramatically. As an example, end of day closure statement is now generated from the system in few seconds compared to two hours in the traditional manual system. Another indicator, the work cycle in the budget department used to take around one day to list the expenditure by each budget line. Currently it is automatically generated from the system in just a few seconds. Moreover, there are some added values to the employees themselves. They feel more empowered using the new technology. They get their work done faster and more accurately leaving more time for analysis and evaluation. Transparency is enhanced as well. The system provides information about who did what and when. This helps monitoring employees and assessing their work quantity and quality. The implemented project fulfills many objectives like reducing the use of paper forms, providing the necessary infrastructure required for workflow functionality between different modules and organizations to enhance government performance through a unified and standardized system. Such systems help in consolidation, integration and aggregation of data.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The project was first initiated by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) in 2001 as part of the E-government initiative. A prototype was implemented in MCIT headquarter in 2002 and the roll-out phase started in 2003. In 2004, the project was transferred to the Ministry of State for Administrative Development (MSAD) which was mandated to continue the roll-out phase. A cooperation protocol was signed between the Ministry of State for Administrative Development (MSAD) and the Ministry of Finance (MOF) to continue rolling out. The automated system was enhanced and modified twice to reflect the change of budget lines which took effect by law in 2005 and 2008. The system was built by an Egyptian private sector company (Giza Systems) through a public tender in 2001 and was enhanced over time. Moreover, a partnership agreement was signed between Oracle and the Egyptian government to provide the necessary Oracle licenses with a considerable discount to governmental accounting units.

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
MSAD plan is to modernize the government and standardize the functions and methods of the accounting units at the various government departments and entities. Deploying workflows in such approach would ensure control and continuous audit leading to better planning of resources in a timely and accurate manner. This will qualify Egypt’s financial framework to integrate with international systems on a global level for future information dissemination or even for benchmarking purposes. The main strategy is to implement a pilot project and monitor its operation in different environments. According to the evaluation of the pilot, enhancements are made to accommodate different users' needs that may arise during operation. Finally, packaging and deployment of the project takes place, focusing mainly on human resources development and changing the work environment. In the beginning of this project’s lifetime, these objectives were put and were taken into consideration in all phases of the project: •Provide the necessary infrastructure for the government to plan and use its financial resources effectively •Open enough to link with other IT systems within the Ministry of Finance and the banking systems •Reduce the use of paper forms •Build capacity within the accounting units to embrace and maintain ICT systems in their daily work •Provide workflow and data analysis techniques to enhance government offices performance, and increase transparency •Provide unified modules throughout the government, making it easy for future consolidation and aggregation.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
The RFP of the project was submitted by MCIT in 2001. A private sector company (Giza Systems) was contracted. The prototype implementation in MCIT started in 2002. The Roll-out phase started in 2003 The project was transferred to MSAD in 2004. Roll-out continued since 2004 by MSAD The following implementation steps took place in each accounting unit: •Site infrastructure preparation (LAN, Hardware, Database installation) •Financial system installation •Training sessions were held •Provision of three months of on-site operation support (monitoring operation) •Provision of one year warranty •Signature of maintenance contracts with the company Currently 300 units are fully operational while 200 are about to be completed by March 2009.

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
Employees resistance to change was a major obstacle. But once the employees recognized how valuable automation can be for them, they became supporters rather than being resistant to such change. Another obstacle was the readiness of the infrastructure at the different government units, and the lack of communication lines and channels between the related units. There were steps taken to overcome such obstacles as illustrated below: •Holding awareness sessions and workshops along with the required training to the different managerial levels (to guarantee their support) and employees (for support and implementation) •Three months on-site operation support to solve any problem •Promoting change by providing different incentives and preparing employees to become experienced users and change agents •Careful selection of the initial team members in each accounting unit as they are required to be technology supporters and users •Partnership with Oracle to provide inexpensive licenses to different applications •Well-designed applications to allow future laws modifications and enable consolidation of different accounting units and consequently the whole government

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
The project was totally financed through the national Egyptian budget. Until now, a total of LE 15,000,000 (approximately $ 3,000,000) was spent. Human resources included: •Project team in MSAD which consisted of one project manager and eight system engineers •Project team in Giza Systems which consisted of one project manager, two developers, five senior implementers and one hundred implementers

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
Currently, a committee between MSAD and MOF works in modifying legislations to enable accounting units to fully use the automated systems without the need to use the manual system in parallel. In addition, it is expected to link the automated system with the banking sector using digital certificates to issue government checks electronically (currently printed out from the system and handled afterwards manually) On the other hand, the project is a national project and is part of the Presidential election program which ensures the required support for sustainability. As for transferability, MSAD gained experience in managing such a big project, coordinating between different stakeholders and supporting the business functions of the end user. It has already shared its experience gained from this project with various Arab and African countries. Interestingly, Arab countries share with Egypt similar financial legislations. Hence, it is quite possible to transfer this system (with some modifications if needed) to Arab interested countries.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The introduction of the Accounting Units Automation System to the governmental accounting units eliminates the need for external interfaces and multi-systems and applications previously deployed. The project provides additional benefits that range from standardization and lower maintenance (one system instead of multiple systems) to allow for easier, greater and more accurate reporting capabilities utilizing one database while reducing error and increasing efficiency, credibility and accessibility for employees to their own records. The project was successfully implemented in different sites for the following success factors: • Being part of the Presidential elections program. • Accounting units’ top management support and follow-up. • Partnering with the private sector and learning from their expertise (PPP). • Skills and experience of MSAD team and the workforce designing, implementing and maintaining the project. •Well designed awareness, training and orientation programs for top management and employees to be able to make the most benefits of the system. •Employees’ involvement guaranteed high buy-in and better implementation, as well as relaxing sensitivity to change.


Institution Name:		Ministry Of State For Administrative Development
Institution Type:		Government Department
Contact Person:		Magda El Alfy
Title:		Head of Technical Office - MSAD
Telephone/ Fax:		(00202) 24000115
Institution's / Project's Website:		(00202) 24000261
E-mail:		melalfy@ad.gov.eg
Address:		13 Salah Salem St.
Postal Code:		11789
City:		Cairo
State/Province:
Country:		Egypt

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information