The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr), along with partner institutions, launched on Wednesday the new Budget and Treasury Management System (BTMS) seen to cut bureaucratic red tape and add greater transparency to government operations.

The BTMS is touted as a secure, reliable and modern financial management information system for better transparency, accountability and efficiency among national government agencies.

Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said the BTMS will help improve the financial system as it will modernize and centralize information and promote better financial management (PFM) operations in government.

“The consequences of having such a system (BTMS) are far-reaching. Before this one, we had no centralized system for PFM transactions. There were attempts before, but none were successful,” Diokno told reporters.

According to the Budget chief, the past PFM system, which was decentralized, brought the country poor ratings in terms of financial reporting and reliability.

“It’s difficult to imagine that until recently, our PFM system has remained highly decentralized, with payments processed at thousands of spending units across the country,” Diokno said.

“Because of our sporadic use of technology and decentralized systems, we earned low ratings in reliability and accountability of financial reporting during our 2016 Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability or PEFA assessment,” he added.

With the BTMS in place, the cabinet official said the issue will now be addressed as expenditure items in the budget will be subjected to a stringent, automated control regime that will guarantee the executed budget will mirror the approved budget as legislated.

The BTMS project was awarded to the joint venture of telecommunications giant Globe through its subsidiary, Innove Communications and FreeBalance Inc., a Canadian software developer for PFM.

“As a company committed to helping the Philippines become a digital nation, we are happy to be part of the government’s journey towards digital transformation,” Globe chief commercial officer Albet de Larrazabal said.

“Through our information and communications technology (ICT) arm, Globe Business, we will continue to explore ways on how organizations can best use ICT to promote process efficiencies and enhance delivery of services,” Larrazabal added.

Also, FreeBalance President and CEO Manuel Schiappa Pietra encouraged government to optimize the capabilities of the BTMS.

“Tapping the full features of BTMS under the FreeBalance GRP (government resource planning) platform will help the government ensure a more responsive, transparent and accountable public expenditure management system,” Pietra said.