Finance Ministry 'starves' NDPC with funds

The Finance Ministry is yet to release the full 2022 budgetary allocation of GH¢16 million approved by Parliament for the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) as the ministry has only released 33 percent of the approved funds to the commission.

According to a report by Parliament’s Finance Committee on the 2023 Annual Budget Estimates of NDPC, an amount of GH¢16m was approved for the commission for its activities in 2022 budget, however as at September 2022, only GH¢5.4m, representing 33 percent of the revised budget was released to the commission.

The amount released was only for compensation as well as Goods and Services with no money for capital expenditure.

The lack of funds, the commission said, affected its ability to upgrade its IT infrastructure to make it more robust and expand its capacity to accommodate the large volumes of reports generated by the commission.

“The committee urges the Ministry of Finance to release the allocation for capital expenditure to the Commission to enable it meet its planned IT infrastructure upgrade,” the report captured.

The report also indicated that the NDPC will undertake the following activities in the 2023 financial year, provide technical backing for the formulation of sector policies and review draft policies, the commission would develop a blue economy strategy, the commission would continue with the evaluation of the goals of selected SDGs and the AU Agenda 2063.

The Commission would formulate a national care policy and develop tools for mainstreaming policies like the food systems transformation, nutrition security, gender and climate change.

The commission would scale-up and deploy a legislative and policy almanac application, review and finalise the long-term perspective plans and monitor the effective implementation of local economic development.

The commission would establish National Monitoring and Evaluation Information System.