sahr2001 - Health Systems Trust

Figure 1:
Structure of financial information management system as applied by KwaZulu-Natal
RESPONSIBILITY AREA
DISTRICT HEALTH SERVICES
OBJECTIVES
Special
Aids unit
HIV/AIDS
support
Conditional
grant
STANDARD ITEMS
POSTING LEVEL ITEMS
Personnel
Administration
Stores and livestock
Equipment
Land and buildings
Professional services
Transfer payments
Miscellaneous
Other
Salary and wages
Subsistence and transport
Equipment
Miscellaneous
Stores
Medicine
Accommodation
This system does not allow for tracking of funds used for discreet activities
(e.g. HBC). The lowest level of aggregation possible in the system (which
could be used to show expenditure by activity) is the ‘Objective’ code. The
system can only comfortably handle a limited number of these codes. To
minimise the number of codes in use, a range of expenditure items (HBC, TB,
HIV integration, IEC (Information, Education and Communication) etc.)
are assigned to a single code. This practice gives rise to a high level of activity
aggregation, making it very difficult to use the formal system to track activities
and thus generate activity budget reports. Units often have to run parallel
reporting systems.
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