Donors To Pump $250 Million Into Economy

The government is to receive 250 million dollars as part of multi donor budgetary support for the year from its development partners. The amount has the characteristic of supporting the government in its poverty reduction strategy programme. The development partners are the African Development Bank (ADB), Canada, Denmark, European Union (EU), United Kingdom (UK), Switzerland and the World Bank.

Speaking at a news conference in Accra last Monday after the mini consultative meeting between the government and its development partners, the Minister for Finance, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo, said that this time, development partners would send joint missions to Ghana to come out with a common policy. 'Instead of each development partner spending time in separate meetings in Ghana to discuss policies, they would come as a group to organize the meeting.” The new policy framework, the minister said was cost effective to both the government and its development partners and would further make cash inflow reliable.

‘’The single problem in the budgetary support is the unreliability and unpredictability of donor credit," he said.

Mr Osafo-Maafo noted that as much as 40 to 45 per cent of budget resources come from the development partners and if it became unreliable the nation would find it difficult to manage the budget.

He expressed the hope that both the government and its development partners would be bound by a common objective, target and as-piration to make sure Ghana develops well and achieves its development goals The World bank Country Director, Mr Mats Karlsson said that the signing was part of a revelation in changing how development was handled

The development partners, he said were coming together to ensure growth in the Ghanaian economy and to reduce poverty.