Ghana keen maintaining macro-economic stability during election year – Finance Minister

Government will not sacrifice economic gains and stability achieved so far on the altar of Election 2012, Ghana’s Finance Minister Dr Kwabena Duffuor said on Monday.

Addressing the opening session of Regional Workshop for budget officers, Dr Duffuor said despite the forth coming elections, government would continue to maintain fiscal discipline and pursue prudent macro-economic policies to help preserve the stability achieved so far.

“The continuous pursuit of prudent macro-economic policies and structural reforms will help further preserve the stabilisation gains made so far,” Dr Duffuor said at the opening session of a three-day regional workshop on the medium-term framework and the budgetary processes.

The government, he said, had made significant strides in boosting tax revenue collection and repaying domestic arrears and also made substantial progress in the structural reform agenda.

“Our remaining fiscal challenges relate to further revenue mobilisation and improving spending efficiency to create room for critical infrastructure investments,” Dr Duffuor said.

There are also additional challenges from the global economic conditions, capacity constraints and dangers of the resource curse, he said.

Dr Duffuor noted that a stronger public financial management system would help the region to withstand these problems.

He called for consistent efforts to institute the best practice of public financial management systems to help in the implementation of a better medium term budget or expenditure frameworks.

Dr Wayne Mitchel, Country Director of International Monetary Fund, said the way to an effective reform of budget process in the sub-region had not been easy because of technical difficulties.

He said implementation of the medium term budget was in certain instances being hampered by political issues and the commitment to reforms in the budget process.

Source: GNA