Belize is the host of a conference on Financial Management Information Systems in which 17 countries of the Caribbean are represented. The conference takes place at the Radisson Fort George Hotel from Tuesday, September 15, to Thursday, September 17. It is organized jointly by the Caribbean Technical Assistance Committee (CARTAC), the Accountant General of Belize, Ms. Dorothy Bradley and Mr. Felix Enriquez from the Treasury Department of Belize.
Enriquez is also the Chairman of the Caribbean SmartStream User Group (CABSUG). He says that the objective of the course is for the different countries to discuss points of mutual concern in regards to Government Accounting Systems such as SmartStream and Freebalance. Enriquez explains
that most of the countries face similar problems and this event allows countries that are just recently implementing national accounting systems to learn from the experiences of countries like Barbados and St. Lucia which were the earlier users of such programs.
Belize is one of the countries which use the SmartStream Management System. SmartStream is an accounting system used to keep track of Government’s payroll, funds control, budget, human resource system and purchasing and payable system. It is a national system which is overseen by the Accountant General. The conference had representatives from the creator of the SmartStream systems who responded to questions from participants of the course. Freebalance system is similar to SmartStream but is only used in a few of the countries – Belize is not one of them. Â
The opening Address of the conference was delivered by the Financial Secretary of Belize, Joseph Waight, and the course was facilitated by John Moore who is a Former Head of Information Technology in the Office of Management and Budget of the United States Federal Government.
