MDAs urged to adopt good financial management practice

Accra, Aug. 17, GNA - Mr Kwaku Agyemeng-Manu, Deputy Minister of Finance In-charge of Revenue, on Tuesday urged Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to adopt good financial management practices since they impacted directly on the quality of the nation's budget expenditure.

"This will also go a long way to contribute to the overall poverty reduction strategy of the Government".

Mr Agyemang-Manu was speaking at the opening session of a three-day awareness and education workshop on procurement for Tertiary Institutions, Ministries, Departments and Agencies in Accra. The workshop is aimed at promoting efficiency, transparency and accountability in Public Sector financial management.

He noted that the rational behind the passing of Internal Audit Agency Act, 2003, was to check financial malpractice before they got out of hand.

Mr Agyemang-Manu said: "The Act set standards, coordinate, facilitate and provides quality assurance for internal audit activities within all MDAs."

It will require all MDAs to establish internal audit units which would from part of the management," he said. He said although all the Tertiary Institutions had established internal audit unit they had not provided details of audit reports to the Ministry.

The Deputy Minister said if financial management systems in all the sectors were improved it would have a substantial impact on savings. He said a Report by World Bank on the country's procurement assessment review in 2003 estimated that at least 25 per cent savings could be made by a better procurement management.

Mr Agyemang-Manu noted that public procurement accounted for 70 per cent of imports and 80 per cent of Government's non-wage expenditure with the Tertiary Institutions taking about 5.1 per cent of the country's budget in 2004.

He advised tertiary institutions to ensure that workers salaries were paid out of Government subvention and desist from borrowing monies from alternative sources when the allocation was not sufficient. "You are advised to alert the Ministry of any shortfalls for budget adjustment to be made since such borrowings will result in debt cycling to the institution".