Carilus Odumbe, Adviser, Debt Management was in the Independent State of Western Samoa as a member of a joint ComSec/World Bank mission to undertake an assessment of Government debt management using the Debt Management Performance Assessment (DeMPA) tool. The assessment was in response to a request for the exercise by the Government to help strengthen on-going efforts to develop an effective debt management policy and strategy as well as provide complementary information to PEFA assessment in reviewing progress and identifying priorities for the next phase of the Public Financial Management (PFM) reforms.

Specifically, the DeMPA assessment identified the strengths and weaknesses in the country's current debt management operations as reflected by a set of 15 performance indicators spanning the full range of government debt management functions. The indicators fall into the following six broad categories:

• Governance and strategy development;
• Co-ordination with macroeconomic policies;
• Borrowing and related financing activities;
• Cash flow forecasting;
• Cash balance management;
• Operational risk management;
• Debt recording and reporting

Besides the joint DEMPA exercise with the Bank, Mr Odumbe also undertook an assessment of progress on maintaining the CS-DRMS external debt database following the placement of ComSec consultant in the Aid Co-ordination and Debt Management Division, Ministry of Finance, Samoa for three weeks in November 2009 in addition to the following tasks:

• Review, update and validate the database;
• Implement recent debt restructuring in the database;
• Provide hand-on training to new users of the software on the above tasks.

The consultant's report had indicated interest in CS-DRMS and CS-SAS by other divisions of the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank. Mr Odumbe followed up on the requests as well as demonstrated to the Central Bank staff, the functionalities of the CS-DRMS domestic debt module and CS-SAS in which the agency has indicated interest for recording and managing domestic debt and auctioning securities, respectively. Mr Odumbe also assessed further training needs of the Ministry of Finance on CS-DRMS.

The following is a picture of Carilus Odumbe facilitating session during the seminar on Public Debt Management organised by the joint World Bank/ComSec DeMPA mission team for participants from the Ministry of Finance and Central Bank of Samoa, Apia, Samoa, 28th January 2010: