Finance and Grants Officer at Palladium Group

Project Overview and Role   

• Palladium develops and delivers solutions that create positive impact for communities, businesses, societies, and economies. We transform lives and create enduring value by working with governments, corporations, and non profit organizations. We create positive impact through more than 100 current projects with more than 2.000 employees operating in over 90 counties.
• The UK Department for International Development (DFID) is considering fulfilling a new requirement in 2018 where we will be seeking partners, suppliers to implement the Mobilising Data for Anti Corruption (MoDAC) programme in Nigeria and Ghana in the first year then potentially scaling up to include Kenya and Tanzania from the second year onwards. These countries have already been chosen by the UK as key partners in the fight against corruption when they attended the London Anti Corruption Summit in 2016.  Any contract would be expected to start in late 2018.
• The programme would aim to improve the quality and use of corruption data, over a four and a half year period, to increase the number of high level sanctions, penalties and prosecutions in corruption cases.  It would fund partnerships between professional users of anti corruption data in law enforcement, civil society, the media and private sector. Partnerships would follow the data on specific corruption cases or high corruption risk events (such as a high value government procurement or extractives contract).
• The Finance and Grants, Nigeria, will be required to manage all the Finance and Grants disbursed under the Programme team in this country.
• The Officer is responsible to the Leadership Team and the Finance and Grants Director for coordination of the fund management function.

Responsibilities   
Portfolio management support in Nigeria:

• Support design and implementation of the application, eligibility and selection criteria and process for the Investment Fund.
• Support in the management of the overall grant portfolio in Nigeria and ensuring activities are on track to meet targets and impact metrics.
• Preparation of the grant allocation, disbursements, and forecast schedules as required.
• Tracking all financial disbursements to grantees and those of the general programme in Nigeria.
• Following up on action points with Leadership Team.
• Ongoing identification and management of relevant operational risks; engaging key stakeholders and ensuring solutions are implemented in a timely manner.

Implementation of grant management process:

• Development of key templates for applications, selection and reporting.
• Review of grantee concept notes and supporting documentation to ensure completeness, consistency and adherence to the grant terms.
• Oversee due diligence process and support selection process in close coordination with programme team and partners.
• Issue grant agreements .
• Review project budgets and advise the Team Leader accordingly.
• Review the Fiduciary Risk Assessment Reports to identify key risk areas
• Project Monitoring.
• Review, analyse and assess grantees performance against KPIs as per grant agreement; ensure milestones are met in order to release grants.
• Review grantees financial reports and request any additional supporting documentation;
• Coordinate project expenditure verification and audit.
• Serve as Relationship Manager for a select few grantees who necessitate strong financial oversight due to the size or risk profile of the grant, including being the first point of contact for such grantees and managing relationships between assigned grantees and the programme.
• Coordination with other team members to track, monitor and report progress

Grant Management Policies and Procedures:

• Focusing on continual improvement in the grant management processes ensuring at all times that the grant management function is operating efficiently and effectively;
• Ensuring that the Grants Manual is up to date regarding grant management policies and procedures.
• Maintain a comprehensive information management and filing system that ensures all Client contractual documents, reports, key correspondences, etc. are appropriately filed in up-to-date and consistent soft and hard libraries available as needed.
• Assist program technical leads and operations staff with understanding the reporting and other compliance requirements on their grants.
• Ensure timely and accurate payments are made to Grantees throughout the life of the Grants Program.

Financial management and reporting:

• Supporting Finance & Grants Director in the financial operations of the Nigerian team;
• Ensure financial systems are complementary to administrative systems;
• Preparing and managing monthly financial statements, and forecasts
• Maintaining overview of programme expenditure against programme budgets;
• Ensure effective, prompt and value for money procurement, including leading the process of introducing and establishing systems and processes to capture VFM.
• Manage all programme banking requirements ensuring that clear audit trails are left of all transactions

Monitoring & Evaluation:

• Supporting MREL Director and M&E specialist with reporting, monitoring and evaluation data collection and analysis.

Requirements   

• University qualification in Business Administration, Accounting, Finance or similar fields, preferably at postgraduate level;
• Professional qualification in accountancy.
• At least 3 years experience working in similar functions.
• Experience of working with relevant organisations and programmes, including Government, Civil Society Organisations and Development Partners and management of donors funded programmes managing grantees or financial management and/or experience in M&E.
• Strong analytical skills.
• Good interpersonal skills.
• Ability to work effectively under pressure and to manage competing priorities.
• Outstanding team player and willingness to learn and support learning of others.
• Fluency in written and oral communication skills in English is essential.