Let’s embrace the opportunities in the coronavirus pandemic - Finance Ministry

The Chief Director of the Ministry of Finance, Patrick Nomo has urged Chief Directors and Directors in the Civil Service across the country to embrace opportunities that had arisen from the global pandemic.

He made this call in his acknowledgement speech after receiving the 2019 Best Chief Director Award at the 2019 Civil Service Awards Night which was held on Friday, 25th September, 2020.

As part of activities to mark the 2019 Civil Service Week under the theme; “Civil Service and Private Sector Synergy: A National Development Imperative”, the Office of Head of Civil Service Organized the Awards night to recognize the contribution of staff who had distinguished themselves in 2019.

Mr. Nomo mentioned that the implementation of the 2020 budget and a number of the Ministry’s achievements had largely been on-course despite the severe economic impact of the COVID-19 on revenue mobilization and financing options.

There had been stable inflation, stable cedi performance on the foreign exchange and sufficient gross international reserves.

He enumerated some key milestones the Ministry achieved in 2019 through hard work and commitment of staff as the passage of the fiscal responsibility Act as well as the Public Financial Management Regulations, the completion of the IMF Extended Credit Facility.

Others included the successful hosting of the IMF/World Bank African Caucus Conference and the reorganization of the Ministry to sharpen its focus on resource mobilization, budget execution, forecasting and reporting.

The Ministry, he added, had chosen to focus on embracing the new normal way of working remotely. Through this new normal, some engagements which included the technical hearing for the preparation of the 2021 Budget were conducted on a virtual platform with positive feedback from participating institutions for enhancing efficiency.

On the future of the Civil Service and Ghana as a whole, the best Chief Director stated that “the COVID 19 pandemic, despite its challenges has provided an opportunity for the Civil Service to transform its work culture and to find new, innovative and cost efficient ways of working while maintaining productivity.”

“I urge my colleague Chief Directors to lead the way in ensuring that our various Ministries embrace the new normal and permanently establish a new work culture that is efficient and enables us to do more” He stated.

The Chief Director commended staff of the Ministry for their support that had culminated in achieving this height. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Ministers and Management members got special mention for their strong and unalloyed backing throughout the year.

Other Ministry of Finance staff who received awards at the event included Dr. Alhassan Iddrisu, Director Economic Strategy and Research Division, who received the Best Director Award, Mr Eric Amankwah Jnr of Treasury and Debt Management Division and Emmanuel Ankrah of Human Capital and General Administration Division.