World Bank to give $75m for GPRS

Finance Minister, Mr Yaw Osafo Maafo on Wednesday said Ghana would benefit from a $75 million loan from the World Bank, a facility tied to the completion of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS).

It represented the shortfall in programme loans expected from donors in the 2002 budget.

The Minister, who was answering parliamentary questions, said the GPRS took a little bit longer to come on stream because its preparation process was underestimated.

He said civil society had to be consulted, "while certain disagreements on definitions on and even the costing of the programme took sometime".

On project loans, he said the 2002 budget estimates stood at ? 1,999.4 billion and a provisional outturn was ? 1,185.1 billion showing a shortfall of ?814.3 billion.

He said a number of reasons including delays resulting from cumbersome procurement procedures and bureaucratic bottlenecks on both the Ghanaian and donor sides.

"Matching funds requirements and low absorptive capacity for the project loans, for example, delays in the execution of World Bank sponsored Roads Sector projects."

He said project grants were pegged at ?992.8 billion, disbursement amounted to ?466.4 billion, showing a shortfall of ?456.4 billion.

The Minister said government with the consent of donors was moving from project aid to programme aid, "where all donors would put their money in one basket.

"Multi-donor budgetary support fund which would be used to support the budget and other projects and programmes based on government priorities would be informed by the GPRS"

He said; "with the multi-donor budgetary support process, there would be some harmonisation of disbursement procedures and common triggers that would be sufficient for disbursements to materialise."