Finance Officer Job Vacancy

Job Title: Project Finance Officer

Reports To: Finance Manager

Background: The Kenya Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) programme, FSD Kenya, was established in early 2005 to support the development of financial markets in Kenya.

In its recently defined strategy for 2011-2015, our strategic objective was spelt out as: Increased use of a broad range of quality financial services provided by a stable and competitive financial system in a way which benefits the livelihoods of under-served lower income groups.

Working in partnership with the financial services industry the programme’s goal is to significantly expand access to services among lower income households and smaller scale enterprises.

It operates as an independent Trust under the supervision of professional trustees, with policy guidance from a programme investment committee. Finance is provided by a number of development partners working with the Government of Kenya (GoK).

Current funders are the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), the Bill and Melinda the Ministry of Trade and Industry through the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) Competitiveness project funded by the World Bank and the Ministry of Finance under the Micro-Finance Sector Support Credit Programme (MFSSC), financed by Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD).

FSD provides support in a variety of ways from commissioning research and dissemination, through providing technical assistance to institution and investment by way of grants, loans or quasi-equity in promising initiatives to increase financial access.

The requirement for support in all cases is the potential for strategic impact on the long-term development of inclusive financial markets in Kenya. Under its new strategy, FSD has identified four theme areas which provide a focus for our work.

Among these is the formal financial system theme which aims to directly tackle the identified need for a significant and sustainable reduction in the end-to-end transaction costs across the formal retail financial system in Kenya. These costs are driven primarily by the price of transactions and the proximity of access points (which drive transport costs and the opportunity cost of time).

Successful exploitation of new technology would result not only in a significant increase in headline inclusion but a potentially dramatic improvement in usage and therefore impact.

A more accessible financial system reaching a large proportion of the population with very low average transaction costs would dramatically push out the frontier for provision of accessible, affordable and secure financial services.

FSD’s strategy identifies a number of initiatives with the potential to help Kenya move towards a ‘cash-lite’ economy in which the ubiquitous use of electronic forms of payments could produce the desired sector-wide reduction in transaction costs.

One potentially important contributor to expanding the use of electronic payments is through government payments. This is a major focus of current and future activity for FSD.

The Government of Kenya, DFID and other development agencies partnered to undertake a major pilot of a cash transfer scheme in the arid and semi-arid regions of the country over the last four years. The pilot phase of this Hunger Safety Net Project is now coming to an end and phase II of the programme is almost taking off.

FSD has taken responsibility for managing the payments element of both phases. The second phase is going to be much bigger supporting an initial 100,000 beneficiaries to eventual cover 350,000 households across the four counties in Northern Kenya.

Additional capacity is needed in within the finance team to manage the increased scope to take day-to-day financial responsibility of supporting this project.

Objectives

The objective of the Finance officer will be to provide support to the Finance manager in maintaining an efficient financial management and administrative system at FSD.

He/she will also provide support to the Theme Heads and other project management staff to ensure that they execute their duties effectively.

The successful candidate have responsibility over the Hunger Safety Net Project (HSNP) by ensuring that  the project is managed effectively and all project funds are accounted for.

Scope of Work

Payments
  • Receive and, review, and track all requests for payment by various creditors, FSD partners and staff members while  ensuring all supporting documents are produced necessary for payments to be processes further are attached and must check accuracy of documents presented.
  • Process payments and other accounting documents into FSD’s financial management system
  • Respond to queries from creditors, partners, and staff regarding payment status
  • Ensure timely payment of all invoices received and proactively notify creditors should there be any delays in payment processing.
  • Work with project team to obtain any approvals or authorizations necessary before payments can be made.
  • Reconcile creditor accounts as may be necessary.

Project funds reconciliation
  • Liaise with the HSNP payments service provider (PSP) and prepare reconciliations of funds per cycle and present them to the Finance Manager for review and approval
  • Follow up and resolve all outstanding issues in the reconciliation on a timely basis
  • Share and discuss periodic reconciliations with the project partners on a timely basis.

Reporting
  • Be responsible for all aspects of HSNP project reporting including all management, donor, PSP, and other partner reports.
  • Assist the finance team in monthly, quarterly and annual reporting.

Budget control
  • Take part in the preparation of FSD budgets and support the project team in preparing their annual and or multi-year project budgets.
  • With support from the project lead and the Finance Manager, the FO will be expected to gain a detailed understanding of FSD projects work (including the HSNP project) in order to provide control and advice to the project management teams.

Liaison with HSNP stakeholders
  • Responsible for effective liaison with these stakeholders on financial matters within the project.

Other tasks may include:

Work closely with the finance and admin team to provide critical support to FSD teams implementing their projects.

This support will include handling routine financial management tasks such as processing payments, posting transactions, processing of statutory payments, managing banking relationships, bank reconciliations, managing the FSD audit, enforcement of policies and procedures.

Requirements
  • A Bachelors degree in business and full professional qualifications (minimum CPAIII or equivalent)
  • At least five years’ financial management experience in busy accounts office with exposure to reconciliation of huge amounts of data
  • Experience in offering financial support to multi-disciplinary team
  • Clear understanding of the financial accounting cycle
  • Ability to work independently and deliver against deadlines

Send your application including a cover letter indicating your desire to work with our client; a detailed CV highlighting relevant experience, details of current and expected salary, a daytime phone contact, email address, and the names of three professional referees to:
 
Adept Systems
Management Consultant
P.O Box 6416, Nairobi,
GPO 00100


Only shortlisted candidates will be contracted


Deadline: Tuesday 8th April 2014.