Felix Zagwazatha Sato, is the current Director for the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) for the Government of Malawi, Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs in the Accountant General’s Department. He overseas implementation of this critical Public Finance Management reform area where the Government of Malawi has successfully managed to rollout all critical modules to all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA’s). From Budgeting, Procurement, Inventory and Contracts to Revenue and Expenditure, the IFMIS system is operational utilizing an EFT Model of payments that has seen the phasing out of cheque payments from all MDAs. Currently, the focus is on enhancements in areas like FIORI as well as IFMIS security utilizing Biolock.

Malawi is a landlocked country bordered with Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania, a population of 21.2m and a land area of around 118,450 square kilometres. A striking feature of the Republic is Lake Malawi, 587km long and 84km wide with the lake surface at 457m above sea level and the deepest point 701m deep. The economy is mostly agricultural based and that also makes up the bulk of Malawi exports. Director Sato will give the audience insights into the process and journey followed to move the country forward on the digital transformation roadmap with all the challenges and successes to align all Government MDA’s on this journey. Deploying S4/HANA across all the MDA’s was a multi-year project currently in the enhancement phase. The Office of the Accountant General is the custodian of the IFMIS for the Government of Malawi.