In state development
The Electronic Commerce Center (CEC), subordinate to the Ministry of Finance, received the status of a national operator in the field of informatization for financial information systems and resources in 2010, within the framework of the government decree "On an operator in the field of informatization" (expired two and a half years ago). The legislative act not so much added new functionality to the CEC, but fixed the current state of affairs - historically, the Ministry of Finance and other state-owned companies throughout Kazakhstan purchased services for the development and maintenance of financial information systems from the CEC.
The CEC, whose history began 40 years ago with the creation of the Information and Computing Center of the Ministry of Finance of the Kazakh SSR, has exceptional competencies in the business processes of the Ministry of Finance, the specialists of the center thoroughly understand the methodology of information systems, since they themselves are their developers.
Electronic government finance
One of the most significant, voluminous and, perhaps, the most famous projects of the CEC is the integrated automated information system "e-Ministry of Finance". This system was created for the complex automation of business processes of the Ministry of Finance of the RK (MF RK) - both for the execution of state functions and for the provision of state services. Information resources of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan and its committees were combined into a centralized information system with a single configuration, secure and reliable access to its applications and resources was provided. And this made it possible to organize a unified information technology infrastructure in the field of financial management. Thanks to the e-Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan has got a qualitatively new, controlled IT-architecture and increased transparency and efficiency of work.
SAP was chosen as the supplier of the industrial platform for the e-Minfin integrated system, the implementation of the system was carried out in stages from 2010 to 2016. In 2010, work began on building a system level, the foundations of subsystems were laid - a portal, an integration bus, a data warehouse, an analytical center. In 2011-2012, work was underway to build the operational level - accounting subsystems, human resources management, the core of the control level (Risk Management System), the development of the system level, the intrasystem landscape, as well as work on replicating the operational and control level in the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
In 2013–2014, levels of monitoring and provision of services were created with further replication across territories and to the local budget. The final stage was the replication of the strategic level and trial operation of the e-Minfin complex. After the functional analysis, a project was launched to replicate the e-Minfin system to all the Ministries of Finance, in 2016 the integrated automated information system e-Minfin was put into commercial operation.
Now, within the framework of the e-Ministry of Finance project, about 50 functions of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan have been automated, which include 11 functional and 4 technological subsystems, where more than 28 thousand users from 4189 organizations connected to the system work for the current period.
Since the system was put into commercial operation, more than 3.5 million accounting documents have been created in the system - bank statements, payments, invoices and invoices. Every year, the e-Ministry of Finance system creates more than 7 thousand approved forms for the preparation and submission of a budget application for a three-year period and more than 4.5 thousand processes for agreeing on a financing plan. The process of collecting consolidated financial statements has been automated, which is currently replicated at the level of the entire state, as a result of which there is a huge effect for the government - the ability to assess the financial results and transparency of the financial condition of the entire state. It is obvious that the centralization and translation of budget management processes into an electronic format increased the efficiency and effectiveness of interaction between government departments.
Automatic consolidation of information made it possible to eliminate the influence of the human factor, and the reduction of costs and labor costs for the collection and consolidation of a large number of reports made it possible to save both time and financial resources. These are the advantages that the relevant department has received from the introduction of the e-Ministry of Finance.
Pro tasks
The creation of a republican-scale system "e-Ministry of Finance" characterizes the Center for Electronic Commerce as a company that has the competence to implement the most complex projects.
Today CEC is a team of 255 professionals, 90% of whom are IT specialists, developers, analysts, engineers, testers.
126 CEC employees are certified specialists from Microsoft, PHP, SAP, VMware, Cisco, Oracle, project management (IPMA). CEC specialists are also involved in the maintenance of systems developed by the Center for Electronic Commerce - and this, in addition to the "e-Ministry of Finance", "Treasury-Client", "Electronic Government Procurement" (EGP).
In addition to the development and maintenance of systems, the E-Commerce Center takes over project management in the case when the structural units of the Ministry of Finance, through competitive procedures, attract contractors from the business side to create information systems. CEC not only coordinates interaction between development companies and structural divisions of the ministry, which are the owners of business processes, but helps in the preparation of terms of reference for the development or refinement of information systems. In other words, CEC translates the requirements of the sectoral departments of the Ministry of Finance into formulations, into languages that IT specialists can understand.
But large projects for the digitalization of public finances are still under the jurisdiction of the CEC, the last of the company's own projects - "Budget Planning", which provides paperless workflow for budget applications and state planning. CEC, as an integrator of the budgetary process, is already introducing this software product in a pilot mode in the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan, in the future it will be scaled up to all government bodies.
The use of "Budget Planning" will provide complete automation of the process from planning to budget execution and not only - the introduction of such a system will link strategic and budget planning; make budget spending more transparent; simplify the procedures for agreeing on the allocation of budgetary funds; to make budget forecasting more accurate by using the price module from the EGZ for goods; reduce the time frame for budget approval.
The current major task of the CEC is the implementation of a product labeling and traceability system. Product labeling will help to clear the market from counterfeits, make it transparent and guarantee product quality. Thanks to the traceability system, it will be possible to track each item of the product "forward" while passing through the supply chain and "back", in other words, the system must know everything about the entire supply chain - from the moment of creation of the product to its final sale. All this will have a multiplier effect for the country's economy, a reduction in the shadow economy will lead to an increase in tax revenues to the budget, Kazakhstanis will receive guarantees that the goods are safe and of high quality, business will have fair competition in the industry and the possibility of switching to electronic document circulation with their counterparties and a significant reduction in costs.
Transmission system
The main customer of the E-Commerce Center is the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan, since the CEC is authorized by the Budget Code and the legislation on public procurement to support the information systems of the Ministry of Finance and its committees.
At the same time, the CEC, despite the presence of impressive experience in the digitalization of public finances, will henceforth not be engaged in the development of software in the Republic of Kazakhstan in order to exclude competition with the domestic IT market. The task of the Kazakhstani development company is to promote its products on the international market.
CEC already has the first experience of exporting an intellectual product - the company has implemented a project of an electronic trading platform for the Agency for the Procurement of Goods, Works and Services of the Republic of Tajikistan. The creation of the system took place within the framework of the World Bank competition among more than 50 countries, according to the results of the work, a high assessment was received both from the World Bank and from the leadership of the Republic of Tajikistan.
By commercializing the created solutions, CEC is not going to compete with domestic business, offering services for the automation of business processes for private companies. Quite the opposite - the E-Commerce Center provides an opportunity for businesses to participate in the processes of government bodies.
To transfer the IT functions of quasi state companies to domestic businesses, it is necessary to provide the same technical as well as regulated conditions for the transfer of information for the IT community. Otherwise, there are risks of shifting IT services towards foreign companies
For example, now CEC provides the implementation of API services so that business can, using access to state information systems, create additional applications that will provide new B2B services or additional interfaces, for example, by developing mobile applications. Now 47 companies are attached to the public procurement portal that make additional mobile applications that allow, for example, to obtain information about a counterparty or procurement analytics for manufacturers so that they can plan their production capacities and product output for specific types of goods.
As an integrator of the budgetary process, the CEC has the ability to transform the business processes of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan itself in order to exclude media breakdowns, make business processes composite, ensure compliance with information security requirements (taking into account being in the CES, international requirements), and ensure the uninterrupted operation of information systems Ministry of Finance.
Nevertheless, in order to increase the competitive environment, the government of the Republic of Kazakhstan intends to reduce the types of activities for state and quasi-state companies, this proposal also applies to IT functions. CEC representatives believe that now is not the right time to transfer critical state information systems to business.
Such a transfer will be successful if the same technical and regulated organizational conditions are created for the domestic business community. Otherwise, there are risks of loss of competencies accumulated by quasi-state companies, which can destroy the current organizational structure of the uninterrupted operation of information systems, established processes of interaction with users, and reduce the efficiency and quality of support.
The risk of system downtime will also increase due to the lack of a contract with a supplier and a long time for him to acquire sufficient competence to train qualified human resources with relevant industry competencies. As a result, the cost of owning an information system for the state will rise, and the efficiency of its use will fall.
A source: http://expertonline.kz/a15620/