Installation of the service funds

1. AfricaRice will establish a separate bank account at BOA in Benin for the management of the operational funds of the concerned GIZ projects. The account name will be “AfricaRice GIZ - Green Innovations Project”. AfricaRice will assure that the signatories of the account are at the Benin station.
2. The account of AfricaRice at BOA (IBAN: BJ66BJ06 1010 3000 7260 3601 1991) will only be used for the payment of services in Benin that are delivered following the procedures of The RUN business model and related expenditures that assure the functioning of the service system in Benin.

3. The BOA account in Benin will be operated following the principle of a revolving fund. For each project the total volume, the upper limit and the lower limit will be defined by the Project Coordinator in common agreement with the Finance Unit at HQ. The upper limit is the maximum amount that is available in the service fund for a specific project. Request for refilling can be made once the balance in the service fund for a specific project drops below its lower limit (find below the upper and lower limit for each project).

4. Requests for the payment of service providers (task agents), invoices and expense claims will be made separately for each project. Payments can be made by check, ordinary bank transfer or MTN mobile money.
5. The head of the KM-Unit of AfricaRice will sign a contract with MTN for the subscription to mobile money services and to install a Mobile Money account (online wallet) (62147000) to enable payments by BOA-Benin using MTN mobile money technology via Internet.
6. The CIVA Accountant and the AfricaRice Finance Unit in Abidjan will have access to the Mobile Money account and in order to view the status, to view and download the detailed records of all payments made.
7. AfricaRice will create a separate "BOA MTN Mobile Money account" in OCS to keep a record of the transactions between the current and the MTN account at BOA and the transactions related to the services payments.
8. The upper limit of the Mobile Money account is 50.000.000 XOF. The lower limit is 20.000.000 XOF.
9. All transaction will also be documented by the GIC to follow the balance of the various projects and accounts (see Status Service fund).

Procedures for the refilling of the service fund

1. Once the balance of available funds in the BOA account in Benin for a particular project has fallen below the defined lower limit, The Accountant of CIVA at the Benin station will submit a request for the disbursement of funds for replenishing to the Project Coordinator. Once approved he will submit it to the Finance Unit at HQ. The request will include a detailed record of all payments made.

2. The Finance Unit at HQ will disburse the funds to the BOA account in Benin and notifies to CIVA Accountant once funds are sent.

3. This procedure will be repeated until funds for services of a specific project are exhausted.

Procedures for the payment of services in Benin

1. The CIVA Accountant will submit a request for disbursement to replenish the Mobile Money account to the head of the KM-Unit for approval.

2. The Accountant will exchange with the contact person (Eric 97 98 37 10) at BOA to assure immediate transfer, he will notify the Head of the KM-Unit once the Mobile Money account is credited Under Africarice Cotonou Administration Supervision.

3. The Accountant of CIVA at the Benin station will debit the BOA MTN account and credit AfricaRice GIZ - Green Innovations Project account in OCS Under Africarice Cotonou Administration Supervision.
   

4. The project coordinator will define services (see Definition of services).
5. The National Service Coordinator will launch services and inform Tasks Agents about payment modalities as defined in the description of services (see SC).
6. The Task Agents will send invoices to the Financial Control Agent according to progress.
7. The Financial Control Agent will verify the invoices.
8. At the end of a service Quality Control Agent will verify if services were delivered according to defined quality criteria and approve the payment requests (invoices of Task Agents).
9. The Financial Control Agent will group invoices and prepare project specific the request for payment including a list of the amounts due for each Task Agent in Excel format. It will include the transfer charges.
10. The National Service Coordinator verifies the request and submits it to the Project Coordinator.
11. The Project Coordinator will approve the request, submit it to the Financial Control Agent and copy the Head of the KM-Unit.
12. The Financial Control Agent will upload the list of payments due on the Mobile Money account and inform The Accountant once the operation is completed.

13. The Accountant will login into the Mobile Money account, verify, validate and trigger the bulk payment of Task Agents.
    The Accountant will credit the BOA MTN account in OCS and debit the project account in OCS (Services expenses account) Under Africarice Cotonou Administration Supervision.  

Procedures for the payment of invoices and expense claims

1. The Head of the KM-Unit will prepare and submit a request for payment to  with all supporting documents.

2. The CIVA Accountant will verify and make payment from the BOA account in Benin by check, ordinary bank-transfer or mobile money Under Africarice Cotonou Administration Supervision.

Procedures for the payment of services in other countries

1. The National Service Coordinator will organise and track progress of service delivery and submit project specific requests for payments to the Project Coordinator.
2. The Quality Control Agent will verify if services were delivered according to defined quality criteria.
3. The Financial Control Agent will verify if the calculation of the amounts due is correct and financial records are up-to-date.
4. Once the request for payment is cleared by the Quality Control Agent and Financial Control Agent, the Project Coordinator will approve and submit the request for the transfer of the total amount due to the Finance Unit of the IITA Benin station. He will copy the Head of the KM-Unit.
5. The Finance Unit of the IITA Benin station will transfer the total amount to the national service coordinator..
6. The national service coordinator will make the payments and submits the receipts to the Head of the KM-Unit.
7. The Head of the KM-Unit establishes a general expense claim with all supporting evidences and proof of providers payment from The National Service Coordinator and submits it to the Finance Unit of IITA at the Benin station.

Confirmation messages from Finance Abidjan: Adjusted of procedures for the management of the service fund at BOA in Benin.msg

Lower & Upper limits

Recording Plan      

                  1- MTN Mobile Money account replenishment

Debit : BOA MTN Mobile Money account

           Credit : BOA AfricaRice GIZ - Green Innovations Project account

                  2- payment of service providers

Debit : 9****  project account in OCS (Services expenses account) with appropriate budget code

              Credit : BOA MTN Mobile Money account

                  3- Others services payment by check or ordinary Bank transfer

Debit : 9****  project account in OCS (Services expenses account) with appropriate budget code

                Credit : BOA AfricaRice GIZ - Green Innovations Project account

Actors and roles