PhD Viva Voce

Qualifications Attained:

Mr. Lucas Renatus is a PhD Candidate (by Course work and Dissertation) in the Department of Education Foundation Management and Lifelong learning (EFML) School of Education at the University of Dar es salaam (UDSM). He is working at Tarime Teachers College as a Deputy Principal. Mr. Lucas hold Bachelor degree (Bachelor of Education in Arts) from UDSM in 2008, Master degree (Master of Education Management and Planning (MEMP)) from St. Augustine University, Tanzania in 2013. Currently he is a PhD candidate pursuing PhD in Education at UDSM, School of Education. Mr. Lucas teaches several subjects including Education Leadership, Education Research, Education Media and Technology. As a researcher, his research area of interest is financial management in Education, educational management, project planning and management.

Abstract:

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on Financial Management at the University of Dar es Salaam. The study was guided by four objectives which were: To examine the trend and factors in adoption of financial management information system at the UDSM, to examine the influence of financial management information data coding on budgeting and planning at the UDSM, to examine how the development in FMIS helps to control income and expenditure at UDSM, to explore how the financial information storage and accounting is practised for decision making at UDSM. The researcher managed to obtain 672 respondents. The study was informed by pragmatism paradigm that embedded to mixed approach. The study employed purposive sampling technique supplemented by convenient sampling and simple random sampling techniques. Three data collection instruments namely face to face semi-structured interviews, questionnaires and documentary review were employed. The findings revealed that the UDSM ICT development has passed through three phases which are Manual, Scala and Votebook. The study findings revealed that between 1961 and 1999 the university financial resources were manually processed through cash and receipts as book keeping. Gradually, early 2000’s the university started to use Scala FMIS. Furthermore, the research findings indicated that the transition from Scala to Votebook FMIS which is ICT mediated connected with Admission and Registration System (ARIS) which was implemented in the year 2008. The use of Votebook system enabled automatic coding, control, storage and dissemination of financial data to produce financial reports.  On budget and planning the findings of the study revealed that votebook acts as a backbone on university financial management because it enables easily architecture of financial data coding as it modified automatically and captured grouping of financial information and digits. Furthermore, the study indicated that the use of Votebook as ICT application has assisted on ethical issues in terms of accuracy, efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, integrity and accountability on control of revenue and expenditure at UDSM through Central Budget Management Information System (CBMIS). Also, the research study indicated that the system is safe on database security because the votebook is a Local Area Network (LAN) and it has server in each Campus as they assist to save data per second, minutes, hourly, per day, weekly, monthly and yearly. Moreover, the findings revealed that the votebook system uses Virtual Programming Language (VPL), Virtual Private Network (VPN) and Structured Query Language (SQL) which detect hackers very fast.  The development of FMIS’s has helped the university to budget and planning is easily forecasted something which have enabled clear monitoring of all expenditure to units as well as transactions and control of fund because any vote holder or authorized personnel including auditors can automatically cross-check the number of invoices, payroll, payments of suppliers, rent, payment vouchers, cheque, student payments. The study pinpointed that all these were streamlined in Government e-Payment Gateway (GePG), Tanzania National e-Procurement System (TANePS), Bank system through ARIS via Votebook system. Lastly, the study recommends that UDSM FMIS should integrate the whole units with ICT on votebook through GIPS, government payment system (MUSE), PLAN REP, CBMIS, ARIS, MSD, LOWSON (for payroll), NHIF, TIPS through Bank of Tanzania (BOT), RMIS. And finally, the study proposed the FMIS model for UDSM in accordance to the current globe ICT development and financial management development.