Bytes Universal Systems (BUS) has successfully implemented SAMRAS, its locally developed and fully integrated financial management system solution, in all its municipal customers across the country for mSCOA 6.1 compliance.
The implementation follows Bytes Universal Systems endorsement by National Treasury as an approved service provider to assist municipalities in becoming mSCOA compliant.
In 2016 National Treasury established a panel of service providers for the provision of an integrated financial management and internal control system for local government. The purpose of the panel was to enable municipalities to procure and implement approved financial management and control systems that complied with the regulation of a Standard Chart of Accounts (mSCOA). SAMRAS was the only system to qualify in all categories of municipalities, including metros.
According to Cherina Smith, GM: IP development solutions, the successful implementation of the SAMRAS system during the first two weeks of July, involved the co-ordination of over 250 people to achieve National Treasury’s goal of ensuring that all municipalities in South Africa become mSCOA compliant.
“We want to thank all our clients involved during this time for their amazing commitment, patience and dedication in achieving this historic event,” she says.
In April 2014 National Treasury published a gazette outlining the municipal regulations with regard to a standard chart of accounts, the purpose being to strengthen and support municipalities’ capacity and capability to fulfil their Constitutional obligation of service delivery. The establishment of a panel of service providers in 2016 for the provision of an integrated financial management and internal control systems to ensure mSCOA compliance was one aspect of this initiative.
“Our selection as an approved provider was based not only on our proven track record and business continuity, we have been doing this for 40 years, but also focused on affordability, value for money, and the fact that SAMRAS is a purpose fit solution that addresses unique local municipal requirements and is mSCOA compliant.
“Our municipalities regularly top the Market Potential Index (MPI) ratings with clean audits. Furthermore, our solution is fully supported and maintained in order to remain compliant with any future updates issued by National Treasury and to address any changes in the municipal entity’s underlying business process,” she adds.
“The SAMRAS solution will further strengthen National Treasury’s vision of standardising information across all municipalities, enhancing monitoring and oversight, and enabling comparability of information across municipalities in terms of benchmarking, standards and measures in order to achieve service delivery excellence. In continuing our digitalisation commitment to our clients, to bring about service excellence through smart city initiatives, we have released, as standard functionality, the citizen portal which enables citizens to access and pay their municipal accounts via a mobile and web application with secure cyber security facilities. It also facilitates communication tracking between the municipality and the citizen of real-time events/warnings or service calls to be attended to,” Smith says.