Government to recover C2176.0 billion

Accra, July 12, GNA - Government is to recover a total of A2176.0 billion from on-lent government guaranteed loans from State Owned Enterprises (SOEs), Para-statals and Private Enterprise.

Presenting a Supplementary Budget to Parliament, Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, said in achieving the above target, Government was committed to improving capacity at the Aid and Debt Management Unit(ADMU) to meet the challenging requirements in the management and administration of on-lending and Government Guaranteed loans.

Reviewing the performance of the 2006 Budget, the Finance and Economic Planning Minister said the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) II formed the new development framework for policies, programmes and activities of all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). He said the goal of the strategy was to achieve accelerated and sustained shared growth, poverty reduction, promotion of gender equity and empowerment of the vulnerable and the excluded within a decentralized democratic environment.

Mr Baah-Wiredu explained that to achieve this goal, the focus of the Government development policy now hinged on three pillars: "First is Private Sector Development; Human Resource Development and Good Governance and Civic Responsibility."

On Private Sector Development he said the Government's medium term growth objectives under Private Sector Competitiveness was aimed at achieving accelerated growth through modernised agriculture. "This would be achieved by creating the enabling environment for the Private Sector to grow, generate employment and increase income." He said GPRS II identified that growth and poverty reduction would be strengthened by improving Ghana's access to global and regional markets while improving the institutional and legal bottlenecks and supporting the adoption of technological innovation and entrepreneurship.

Thus, the Private Sector would be provided with the appropriate incentives to spearhead the growth agenda. This could be done through the various MDAs whose direct activities have significant impact on the activities of the Private Sector. 13 July 06