Uganda officials trained on the use of DMFAS

The Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development in Uganda requested for in-country training on the use of the Debt Management and Financial Analysis System (DMFAS) to record, report and manage public and publicly guaranteed debt.  This follows the recruitment of new staff responsible for managing the public debt within the DMFAS system, at both the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Uganda. In addition, there have been some new enhancements to the system which also necessitated the training of users.

To this end, a joint MEFMI/UNCTAD DMFAS in-country workshop was conducted from 6 to 15 February in Kampala, Uganda. This is part of joint efforts by MEFMI and UNCTAD to support the maintenance of comprehensive public debt databases in member countries. A total of eighteen (18) officials participated in the workshop. These were drawn from the Ministry of Finance’s, Treasury Services and Asset Management (TSAM) Directorate, Directorate of Debt and Cash Policy (DDCP), Development Assistance and Regional Cooperation (DARC), and Directorate of Financial Management System (DFMS). In addition, there was participation of officials from the Bank of Uganda’s Statistics Department. Of the total participants, six (6) were female.

The workshop comprised PowerPoint presentations and practical walkthrough sessions on DMFAS. The PowerPoint presentations focused on enhancing the capacity of country officials in areas such as recording loans, bonds, and related transactions; production of user-defined reports; making projections on outstanding debt, and calculating present value, accrued, and late interest estimations. It also introduced participants to recently added DMFAS modules, including issuance authorisation, drawing requests, recording historical estimated disbursements, data validation/workflow, calculation of nominal value as well as the medium-term debt management strategy (MTDS) interface. The walkthrough sessions provided participants with the practical aspects of the system. 

The workshop enhanced the knowledge and skills of country officials on the use of DMFAS to record and manage public and publicly guaranteed debt. It also raised awareness on the new DMFAS modules. It was facilitated by Mr. Gabor Piski from UNCTAD and Mr. Henry Dutiro, a DFMAS Expert from the Zimbabwe Public Debt Management Office

By Josephine Tito