Kampala 1st July 2005

HP selected to invest in Uganda.

As part of a long-term strategy for improved public expenditure management to drive its macro-economic environment and reduce poverty, the Uganda Government and Hewlett-Packard (HP) have announced the successful completion of the 1st Phase (Pilot Project) for its Integrated Financial Management System.

Implemented by HP and its partners, the IFMS is currently running at six government ministries and four local government bodies including the Kampala City Council and Jinja, Bushenyi and Lira. The aim of the system, which uses Oracle applications software, is to support the improvement of public sector budgeting, financial management and accounting to achieve more timely, transparent and accurate information for both the local and central government of Uganda.

According to HON. Professor Semakula Kiwanuka, Minister of State at Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development and responsible for Investment, before embarking on the ambitious project, the Government of Uganda - in consultation with the World Bank - did extensive planning and research on the political mandate and organisational structure required to ensure the success of the project.

"After issuing a Request for Proposal, we reviewed the various responses from major international companies and went into protracted negotiations with the bidders. HP was selected for a number of reasons, most notably for the company having implemented similar solutions worldwide, its long-term commitment to the region and its pledge to take complete responsibility of all aspects of the project.

This involved the implementation of the applications and setting up of the infrastructure at the main data centre in Kampala as well as all the other sites across the country. Other key components included the setup of the wide area network, training and capacity building, and change management" Minister said.

Olivier Suinat, managing director for Africa at HP says: “Because the solution had to offer around-the-clock global availability and the capacity to accommodate multiple functions simultaneously, numerous critical factors had to be considered in the design. These spanned the mission-criticality of the application and database, the ability and availability of professional technical consultants to maintain the system, the training and transfer of skills to GoU personnel and the delivery of a total solution and services offering.”

HP and its project partners have delivered a solution that integrates new technologies with an existing heterogeneous system which allows disparate departments and systems to share information seamlessly.

Sub-contractors to HP on the project included Oracle Corporation for Treasury application services, Computech Uganda for hardware infrastructure services, Venture Communications Uganda for networking infrastructure services, RPC Data Uganda for application functional training and support and UTL Uganda and MTN Uganda for telecommunication services.

"HP is proud to be associated with the Government of Uganda and the World Bank in successfully implementing this pilot phase of the IFMS project. The success was undoubtedly due to the teamwork displayed by the operational teams on both sides, and most importantly, the management commitment across all levels within Government and from the project contractors".Suinat said.

(Source: The UgandaNetwork)

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