Finance Minister meets Economic team on 2002 budget

Yaw Osafo Maafo, Minister of Finance, is meeting with members of the National Economic Management Team to fine-tune the final draft of the 2002 budget, to be presented to Parliament on Thursday.

The meeting, which started on Monday morning under the chairmanship of Joseph

Henry Mensah, Senior Minister, is a follow up to a similar one held at Ho over the weekend.

A reliable source at the Finance Ministry told the Ghana News Agency that the 2002 budget would seek to consolidate the microeconomic and fiscal gains made during the first year and provide stricter ways of ensuring that the economy enjoyed real growth.

"We hope to bring out measures that will ensure that we lift the economy higher than we came to meet it," the source said, adding; "first, we moved to stabilise the economy, now we will introduce policies to move the economy to a higher gear of growth."

The source mentioned transport, agriculture, infrastructure development, education and health and communication technology as key areas for attention this year. "This does not mean that other areas would not receive attention, but that the distribution of funds will be spread more evenly at certain portions."

On funding of health, the source said greater attention and funds would be given "to fighting the HIV/AIDS menace, which is fast killing a large chunk of our population."