General Description of Programme:
Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world. There are chronic problems of hunger and alarming HIV and AIDS prevalence rates. Over one fifth of all people are not able to meet their minimum nutritional requirements while approximately 12% of the adult population (15 to 49) are living with HIV/AIDS. With one of the highest adult HIV prevalence rates in the world, the epidemic has exacerbated social problems as diverse as food security and human resource capacity.
GOAL has been implementing programs in Malawi since 2002. In 2012 GOAL will implement programs in HIV and AIDS, nutrition, water and sanitation, livelihoods/food security and disaster management in three districts. GOAL Malawi’ main office is in Blantyre, and has a liaison office in the capital city of Lilongwe.
The current donors are Irish Aid, DFID, European Union, WFP and UNICEF.
General Description of the Role:
The aim of the role is to manage the financial function of the GOAL programmes in Malawi, ensuring proper financial reporting, financial controls and financial systems are in place and in line with the specified GOAL Ireland procedures. This will include preparation of monthly management accounts, budgets for proposals, donor status reports, monitoring levels of GOAL expenditure, year end accounts etc.
Key Duties:
• Report directly to Country Director in country and to Chief Financial Officer in Dublin
• To manage/supervise and work closely with local financial administrative staff
• To build the capacity of local finance and programme staff in financial issue submission to Dublin
• Management accounts – based on the GOAL management accounts template – includes monthly and year to date project and donors actuals, bank reconciliations, income and expenditure account, and other necessary information . • Donor Status Reports (DSR) – Monthly reports on the project actual v budget, and donor funding on individual budgets.
• Responsibility for the preparation of project financial budgets (in liaison with project officers) for submission to donors. The budgets must be in accordance with the donor’s guidelines for budget submissions.
• Responsibility for the timely preparation of financial reports – monthly, quarterly, bi-annually or yearly, as required by the donor project contracts and guidelines, which agree with the corresponding narrative reports. These are submitted to Dublin for approval along with budget variance analysis and explanations.
• Prepare the annual financial field budget with Country Director for submission to Dublin for approval.
• Monitor and ensure project and administrative spending are all in line with agreed budgets, - identify potential project under or over-spends and liaise with Dublin and donors as to the required action needed (e.g. no-cost extensions, budget re-allocations, etc)
• Responsible for cash management and control of cash flow, liaison with banks
• Ensure internal controls are reviewed and maintained according to GOAL guidelines
• Maintain and improve information systems – develop the accounts/financial information maintained on the field’s accounting package.
• Ensure adherence to GOAL’s ‘Accounting and Finance Manual’ and donor requirements. Ensure familiarity with the contents and requirements of both.
• Prepare the year end financial statements, arrange and ensure timely completion of year end audit.
• Responsibility for ensuring local compliance with the employee tax deductions, that all relevant statutory deductions are made from the employees salaries and paid out to the appropriate authorities
• Ensure GOAL procurement procedures are adhered to and ensure maintenance of fixed asset register – quarterly updates submitted to the Dublin logs office.
• Recharge the costs that Dublin office incurs and ensure that the Field amounts agree to the amoutns per Dublin
• Conduct regular field visits for internal auditing purposes and verification of systems and controls
• Ensure GOAL’s fraud policies are adhered to
• Any other duties as required.
Requirements:
• Qualified Chartered/Certified Accountant or Management Accountant
• A minimum of 1 year overseas experience with development programs as a financial controller
• Excellent interpersonal, motivational and management skills
• Experience in preparation and monitoring of budget proposals
• Ability to take direction and work independently
• Previous experience is living in isolated areas and with basic conditions
Reporting To GOAL Country Director. This Job Description only serves as a guide for the position available. GOAL reserves the right to change this document. This position is unaccompanied. Interviews will be held in Dublin or London. Unfortunately GOAL cannot contribute to financial costs incurred when attending for interview.
