Sub-Grants and Finance Officer -East Africa Land Border Programme

Minimum Qualification & Transferable Skills

• A bachelor’s degree in business administration, Finance, Economics or relevant field; an advanced degree is preferred.
  
• Professional accounting certification CPA desirable
  
• At least 3-5 years of demonstrated professional experience managing grants, subcontracts, procurement and compliance with donor regulations, preferably Donor-funded projects.
  
• Strong accounting skills and experience, including management of the general ledger, journal entries, payables and balance sheet.
  
• Demonstrated experience applying clauses and negotiating without heavy management oversight including developing amendments and modifications as a result of negotiations.
  
• Experience providing capacity-building training to staff partner organizations.
  
• Strong analytical and computer skills, with emphasis on budget and financial analysis and advanced computer skills in MS Office, particularly excel, are required.
  
• Fluency in the English Language is required.
  
• Other required competencies and skills include:
  

Pre-Award

• Participate in the Partner Grant Fund solicitation and selection of sub-recipients and subcontracts, working closely with the programme technical team to identify potential areas of support, eligibility and evaluation criteria.
  
• Work with selected grantees to ensure budgets are in line with program activities and that costs are reasonable, allowable and allocable.
  
• Conduct due diligence assessments on all grants including feasibility, evaluate environmental requirements and pre-award assessment of financial responsibility to ensure sub recipients have the capacity to comply with the terms of subcontract agreement, is free of conflicts of interest and are eligible organizations.
  
• Develop financial monitoring plans for partners.
  

Post-Award

• Conduct financial monitoring office visits to ensure that the use of funds and the activities performed are in compliance with the terms and conditions of the subcontracts.
  
• Review sub-recipient/grant reports for accuracy and completeness and regularly monitor their budgets vis-a-vis financial reports
  
• Review sub-recipient/grant funds requests for accuracy and completeness and process payments/reimbursements as appropriate.
  
• Maintain complete and accurate files for all sub-recipient/grant files as per the Field Finance Manual.
  
• Review and post the financial reports in the system ensuring they are reconciled to subrecipient financial reports regularly.
  
• Review status of subcontracts reports ensuring milestones in system are up to date
  

Close-Out

• Review final financial reports for accuracy and completeness
  
• Conduct final funds reconciliation and liquidation of sub-contracts
  
• Participate in final close out reviews
  
• Review consortium partners and downstream files to ensure that subcontract records are complete
  
• Follow up on asset disposition ensuring that all assets purchased by the partners with program funds are disposed of in accordance with donor rules
  
• Prepare final Close-out checklists and notification to consortium and downstream partners
  

Finance:

• Work with Finance Officer to support monthly reconciliation of all balance sheet accounts and do related reclasses and submit monthly reports to Finance and Compliance Director.
  
• Support daily monitoring of program bank accounts for status of running balances, received funds, rejected payments, and record those timely in the accounting system.
  
• Support monthly amortization of all prepaid expenses and submit to Finance and Compliance Director for Review and posting.
  
• Support with preparation of monthly Cash flow
  
• Process withholding VAT and withholding tax as per KRA regulations
  
• Being the bank contact person, maintain the bank file, ensuring that all bank information is properly filed and updated.
  
• Support with processing of payments
  
• Support with entry of payments and journals into the system
  
• Support timely processing of all bank payments, fund transfers, as per the payment schedule
  
• Support counter check of payment documents ensuring that supporting documentation corresponds to the payment request, calculations are correct, and that payment request is duly signed as per the AAM level.
  
• Any other duty as may assigned.
  

Others

• Ensure that program activities comply with Mercy Corps internal policies and procedures, as well as donor rules and regulations and national laws and legislations in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Somalia.
  
• Support Finance Officer with other grants or finance sector activities.
  
• Coordinate expenditure verification and project audits and follow up on management decisions regarding audit findings ensuring these are documented and communicated to the sub recipients
  
• Any other relevant duties as may be assigned.
  

Safeguarding responsibilities

• Actively learns safeguarding and integrates it into their work, including safeguarding risks and mitigations related to their area of work.
  
• Practices the values of Mercy Corps including respecting the dignity and well-being of participants and fellow team members.
  
• Encourages openness and communication in their team; encourages team members to submit reports if they have any concerns using reporting mechanisms e.g., Integrity Hotline and other options.