The Sistem Perbendaharaan dan Anggaran Negara (SPAN), which tracks government spending in real time, was launched in April this year as part of Indonesia’s Government Financial Management and Revenue Administration Project. Donors backing the project include the World Bank and the European Union.

Speaking at a conference in Jakarta on Wednesday, finance minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said: “The main feature of SPAN is automation, which supports the audit trail to enhance transparency in the management of state finances and integration of several sub-modules for state financial management.

“With SPAN as a model, we will continue to improve on the management of budgeting, treasury, taxation and customs and excise.”

SPAN tracks government spending in real time across a range of institutions including the finance ministry and the treasury, with more than 3,600 users and serving 24,000 spending units in total.

This removes the potential for human error and fraud, improves budget management and accountability, and enables the government to watch spending limits, deliver on commitments and better prepare expenditure planning.

Vincent Guérend, ambassador-designate of the EU to Indonesia and Brunei Darussalam, and Yvonne Baumann, ambassador of Switzerland to Indonesia, commended the achievements made and said they looked forward to continuing to work with the country in improving its public financial management.

Guérund said the programme was one of the “most important results” of the partnership and has “enormous potential” for further progress.

Rodrigo Chaves, World Bank country director for Indonesia, said the next steps would be to use the system to improve policy planning and monitoring for more effective public spending.

It will allow the government to allocate more funds to programmes that help reduce poverty and share prosperity more widely in the country, he said.