By DALCY LULUA
SPEAKING during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between National Department of Health (NDoH) and Department of Finance (DoF), Senior Financial Management Specialist from the World Bank, Moses Wasike has emphasized about strong financial management systems for quality health services in the country.
“Strong financial management systems are key underpinnings in the delivery of quality health services.
“The health department acknowledges the need to strengthen its Public Finance Management (PFM) systems and the Pick-Up Program of the Department of Finance will be a critical player in delivering this required service,” said Mr Wasike.
Mr Wassike also highlighted that the MoU is mainly focused on strengthening PFM capacity between the two departments.
“Both departments have a systematic way of providing support in the areas of financial planning, budgeting, budget execution, accounting, reporting and auditing.
“The MoU will be implemented under the Impact Health Project, which is a flagship project of the Department of Health that is financed by the World Bank, which supports the strengthening of frontier health service delivery, by applying innovative methods towards improving system performances,” added Mr. Wasike.
Four pilot provinces have been chosen for this programme and work has started already.
Mr Wasike emphasized that lessons learned from this initiative will help us to scale and learn from experience and hopefully improve with other provinces.
Mr. Wasike further conveyed his congratulations to the two departments for the substantial approach towards recognizing the implication of collaboration to deliver impactful results.
“I’d like to again congratulate the two departments for taking this interesting spotlight to the health department, and for the foresight in recognizing that collaboration with the Department of Finance will be critical for service delivery at a sub national level.”
He concluded by commending finance department for the foresight in setting up the Pick-Up program. Mr Wasike said that this initiative has now enabled the provision of further support towards the leadership on both sides in this collaboration.
