OREANDA-NEWS. October 11, 2013. A presentation of the Georgia Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) Assessment 2012 to the government officials, donor counterparts and civil society took place at the World Bank Office in Tbilisi.

The 2012 PEFA assessment aimed at conducting a review of the public financial management (PFM) system in Georgia to measure progress achieved since the first PEFA assessment in 2008 and to inform the Government’s future reform program. This report presents an updated overview of PFM performance in accordance with the PEFA Performance Measurement Framework, and establishes and explains the level of improvement in performance based on the PEFA indicators scores by comparison to the results found during the previous evaluation.

“The 2012 PEFA assessment was conducted in close collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, which led the self-assessment of the indicators by the respective government entities. The 2012 PEFA self-assessment served as a means for taking stock of the reform efforts undertaken over the last five years and measure the success of introduction medium term expenditure framework  and program budgeting, impact on the PFM performance of the Treasury servicing roll out and reform efforts in areas of procurement and external control. The Bank team provided quality assurance for and validation of the self-assessed indicators, and prepared the complete assessment report.” said Elene Imnadze, Senior Public Sector Specialist and the task team leader for the Project.

The PEFA repeat assessment, while drawing on the findings of the recently completed Public Expenditure Review, as well as other recent diagnostic work adds value to these analyses by applying a more comprehensive, standardized and indicator driven methodology that focuses less on describing reform steps undertaken by the Government than much more on measuring the aggregate outcomes of PFM systems performance.

According to the Asserssment, Georgia has advanced significantly its budgetary and financial managements systems since the previous PEFA assessment Report of 2008. The basic set of systems has been put in place for strategic budget planning, budget formulation and execution with the key modules of Integrated PFM system launched, Treasury Information System operational and Electronic Government Procurement introduced. Scope and nature of external audit has also be strengthened.

The report also identifies the remaining weaknesses of the system and seeks to help building consensus within the Government on the Public Finance Management reform agenda going forward through extensive consultations and building on the achievements to date.