Job Title: Financial Controller
Reporting to: Country Director and CFO
Contract Length: 24 Months
Job Location: Based in Freetown, Sierra Leone
General Description of the Programme:
The 2014 Ebola outbreak is the largest Ebola outbreak in history and the first in West Africa. The current outbreak is affecting multiple countries in West Africa with Sierra Leone/Liberia first reporting cases in March of this year. As of September of this year Liberia has reported over 3,000 cases with Sierra Leone reporting over 2.500 cases. Based on current rates of infection it is expected that case numbers will climb significantly in the current months. GOAL has been working in Sierra Leone for several years now and has been active in the Ebola Health response since the outbreak was declared. Due to the scale of the outbreak GOAL has decided to establish a response to provide assistance to the large numbers of people who have become infected in recent weeks and are expected to be infected in the coming weeks and months ahead.
General Description of the Role:
Working in a challenging and dynamic environment, the Financial Controller is responsible for the financial management, internal control systems, management of funds, and reporting requirements of the organisation. In particular the successful candidate will ensure timely submission of required donors reports, monthly management accounts to GOAL Dublin, statutory reports and other ad hoc reporting to relevant authorities, as well budget preparation and monitoring of the programme. As a key member of the senior management team, the Financial Controller will contribute to the overall development and running of the country programme.
Duties of the role:
- Ensure proper financial systems, in head office and across a broad geographic of field locations, are in place and implemented to accurately record expenditure
- Ensure compliance with accounting procedures and policies across the Sierra Leone programme and actively monitor internal controls to minimize risk to the organization.
- In particular ensure appropriate cash management procedures are in place and operating effectively
- Ensure preparation and retention of documentation to facilitate the annual external audit, donor audits, internal audits and revenue audits
- Oversee all cash management, including cash counts and cash transfers to field sites in cooperation with the Programmes & Logistics team ensure that GOAL Sierra Leone is in compliance with all relevant donor and internal guidelines
- Ensure cost allocations basis among donors are reasonable
- Review monthly management accounts including donor status reporting for submission to GOAL Head Office, Dublin, adhering to strict deadlines
- Review financial reporting to donors and other regulatory bodies, adhering to strict deadlines
- Review the financial sections of donor proposals, budgets and reports
- Review GOAL annual and quarterly rolling budgets
- Monitor and assist with the financial management of programme budgets including expenditure forecasting, ensuring the Budget Monitoring Tool (BMT) is completed in a timely manner
- Maintain and keep updated Sierra Leone Finance Manual, including a summarized and simplified finance and logistics manual for use by project managers and other field based staff
- Provide support to the HR Manager on personnel and staff issues which have financial implications
- Oversee training and capacity building of locally recruited finance staff
Education/Experience:
- Qualified accountant. ACA, ACCA, CIMA, CPA or equivalent.
- At least five years’ experience, with at least one of these overseas.
- At least two years at a senior management level.
- Strong ability to work in highly pressured environment, with high levels of deliverables required on a continuous basis.
- Experience in dealing with institutional donors such as OFDA, ECHO, EC, UN grants and DFID.
- Excellent interpersonal, motivational and management skills.
- Excellent analytical and writing skills.
- Strong IT skills and systems experience; Excel advanced with Sage experience desirable.
- Strong experience liaising with governmental/local authorities and other NGO’s.
GOAL has a Standards of Integrity and a Child Protection Policy, which have been developed to ensure the maximum protection of programme participants and children from exploitation. GOAL also has a confidentiality policy ensuring the non-disclosure of any information whatsoever relating to the practices and business of GOAL, acquired in the course of duty, to any other person or organisation without authority, except in the normal execution of duty. Any candidate offered a job with GOAL will be expected to adhere to these policies any job offer made is also subject to police clearance. GOAL is an equal opportunities employer.
This Job Description only serves as a guide for the position available. GOAL reserves the right to change this document. Any published closing dates are estimated. Due to the nature of GOAL’s work we aim to fill vacancies as quickly as possible. This means that we will close adverts as soon as we have found the right candidate and this may be before the published closing date. We would therefore advise interested applicants to submit an application as early as possible.
HOW TO APPLY:
