The Government has come of age and overcome a lot of the difficulties it faced when it took office.
"We have gone through the learning process over (a period). We have been in office and though we were slow in implementing some projects, we can now say that we are doing things faster now having learnt more now," Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, told the closing session of a two-day Ghana-German bilateral negotiations in Accra.
The 10-man German team and its Ghanaian counterpart were discussing their annual economic and development cooperation at the end of which 468.9 billion cedis was committed to Ghana for 2003 and 2004 to implement various German assisted projects and programmes in the country.
Mr Osafo-Maafo, who signed for Ghana, said even though the German delegation might not have found everything done successfully, "I can say that subjects such as the Procurement Bill, the Local Government Bill and the Revising Support of EU Financial Administration Bill are all before Parliament and would soon be passed.
"The International Monetary Fund and World Bank are assisting us in this direction."
He noted that the performance of the district assemblies in mobilising revenue was improving and indications were that "things are very encouraging".
Mr Osafo-Maafo praised German non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in their efforts at changing the Ghanaian economy adding that, all arrears owed German contractors have been paid.
Mrs Gudrun Gross-Wiesmann, Director for Africa and Middle East of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, who initialled for her country, said 302.8 billion cedis out of the total amount would be provided under Financial Cooperation and the balance of 166.1 billion under technical cooperation.
Approximately 244.2 billion is in the form of a grant whilst the balance of 224.7 billion cedis would be provided as a concessionary loan with a 40-year maturity period with a 10-year grace period and an interest rate of 0.75 per cent per annum."
She said the 302.8 billion provided under the financial cooperation would be used in financing agriculture and food security, economic reforms and development of a market economy, democracy, civil society, public administration among other areas.
