Accounts Department Trains Accounts Personnel for Parishes and Institutions
By Maupo Kumwenda (Diocesan Accountant)
The Diocese of Karonga organized a 4 day training workshop for accounts personnel for Parishes and some Catholic establishments with the funding from Propaganda Fide.
The workshop, which took place at St Kizito Conference Centre in Chitipa from 6th March 2018 to 9th March 2018, focused mainly on computerized accounting and standardizing financial management processes in order to have same type of operation procedures and reports for all parishes.
The participants included Parish Clerks from St Mary’s, St Michael’s, St Annie’s, St Steven’s and St Ignatius parishes; Accountants from Atupele Hospital, St Steven’s Parish, St Annie’s Hospital and Bursar from St Ignatius Secondary School.
During the training, the participants prepared budgets, income and expenditure accounts for their respective institutions. They also learnt how to record all data for their income in the computer and be able to produce reports. This will enable all parishes and institutions to produce monthly reports with ease as is the requirement.
Three new laptops were purchased to be distributed to 3 parishes.
The participants expressed gratitude to Bishop Martin A. Mtumbuka of the Diocese of Karonga for the continued assistance to improve their capacity bearing in mind that last year they underwent a similar session.
Accounts Department in Capacity Building Drive
By Accounts Department
In order to harmonise the accounting systems of the establishments under the Diocese of Karonga, the Accounts Department held mentorship sessions with personnel handling finances in December 2017 and January 2018.
Diocesan Accountant, Mr. Maupo Kumwenda, visited St Anne’s Health Centre, Kaseye Girls Secondary School and St Ignatius Secondary Schools to appreciate how finance personnel were performing their duties and to strengthen their capacity.
During the sessions, Mr. Kumwenda oriented bursars and accounts personnel on various operational modalities. He also helped the participants in the establishment of systems for internal control to suit the operating system of each organization. He further oriented them in the formulation of their institutional budgets.
The Diocesan Accountant also assisted the bursars and accounts personnel from all the three institutions in designing a standard template for financial statements for them to follow. In all the three institutions, Mr. Kumwenda emphasized the importance of producing management reports.
The major gap that was identified in all the three institutions was in the area of budgeting. It was also discovered that some of the establishments do not have resources such as computers.
The finance personnel were grateful for the orientation and promised to improve on service delivery.