Atta Mills commended for introducing GIFMIS

The former Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Albert Kan-Dapaah, has paid a glowing tribute to the late President John Mills who supervised the introduction of the Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS).

The system, he noted, was the best ever mechanism the country had seen in the public fiscal management.

Mr. Kan-Dapaah was speaking at a sensitisation forum in Sunyani organised by Penplusbytes, an NGO on Financial Accountability and Transparency-Africa (FAT-Africa), a think tank.

It was meant to stimulate and sustain the interest of citizens to meaningfully participate in the national budget process

According to the former Energy Minister, under the Kufuor’s administration, the public funds management had been very awful, resulting in misappropriation of state funds and corruption.

The GIFIMS, he said, if well implemented could sanitise public funds management.

GIFMIS was launched in September 2009, as part of the Public Financial Management (PFM) reforms in Ghana by the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD), under the auspices of the Finance Ministry.

Touching on corruption, he said: “In order for Ghana to win the fight against the canker, concerted and holistic approach devoid of political coloration is needed to address it.”

Mr. Jerry Sam, Project Coordinator, Penplusbytes, for his part, said the Citizen’s Budget Project funded by STAR-Ghana with support from UK-AID, EU, USAID and DANIDA was to help more Ghanaians particularly rural folks to effectively contribute to the preparation of subsequent budgets.