Britain happy with Ghana’s short-term financial management

Britain on Thursday commended Ghana for making progress in developing a short-term financial management action plan and for implementing some of its priority actions.

Mr. Robin Gwynn, Acting British High Commissioner said his government also recognised that "the task is not yet complete." "We are keen to see the Ghana government's proposed Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Budgetary Public Expenditure Management Systems (BPEMS) review going forward quickly', he said at the signing of a 10 million pounds aid grant agreement between Ghana and U.K in Accra.

Finance Minister Yaw Osafo-Maafo and the British High Commissioner signed the grant, which is the second of a 10-million pound tranche of a 20-million pound programme between the two countries to support Ghana's Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative. The first tranche was disbursed a few months ago.

Mr Gwynn said Britain intended to move toward providing multi-donor support to Ghana for all her future budget support and promised a flexible funding of up to 500,000 pounds to assist the Ministry of Finance to undertake prioritised short-term actions. This, he said, should ensure predictability of donor funding, appropriate timing of disbursements and enhanced ability for the government to deliver its annual budget.

Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo said government realised that transparency was key to good governance, saying foreign partners would only provide assistance when a government showed openness in utilizing funds. He gave the assurance that government would ensure prudent public financial management so that government could move from donor support to budgetary support.