Don’t prepare budgets based on manifestos— Kan Dapaah
A Consulting Director at the Centre for Public Accountability of the University of Professional Studies, Mr Albert Kan Dapaah, has urged governments to desist from preparing budgets based on party manifestos.
Advertisement
He said it was obvious that party manifestos were skewed towards winning the votes of the masses and usually not in line with budgetary realities.
He said budgets ought to be based on predetermined long-term strategies and medium-term sector strategies developed through consultative process.
Mr Dapaah was speaking at the opening of a two-day training in public accountability for metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies in the Central Region in Cape Coast on Wednesday, last week.
The training was organised by the centre to help public sector personnel to understand public sector financial management systems.
The participants were taken through the internal audit system, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the Financial Administration Act and social and environmental accountability.
Mr Dapaah commended the government for efforts to introduce a 40-year development plan and expressed the hope that subsequent governments would stick to it.
The consultant, who was once the Chairman of the PAC of Parliament, noted that many people were embarrassed before the PAC not because they had embezzled monies but because they did not know the financial management principles governing the use of public funds.
Other Trending Stories
Democracy, corruption and development
Mr Dapaah observed that with the advent of democracy came new challenges of corruption and financial accountability, saying that the workshop was essential to help all to understand the issues and work to fight corruption.
He noted that without an understanding of those laws and regulations and good financial governance, there could be no sustainable development.
Consensus
Mr Dapaah said situations where political parties fought one another on every budget portrayed them as not development-friendly.
He said it was not necessary that the nation divided itself along party and tribal lines in the efforts to achieve socio-economic development.
“We, as a country need unity to solve Ghana’s problems,” he said, and called for inclusiveness, transparency, accountability and participation to achieve accelerated development.
He also called for more independent institutions to ensure financial accountability in the public sector.
Aquinas Quansah
The Central Regional Minister, Mr Aquinas Tawiah Quansah, said studies had brought to the fore the fact that accountability in the public sector was one of the weakest elements of African governments even though it was crucial to good governance.
He noted that Ghana, as a country, had brilliant laws and regulations and acts that guided the operation of public office holders but noted that public office holders had failed to comply with them due to negligence or ignorance, resulting in huge losses to the state at the expense of the taxpayer.
“It is significant to note that the failure of the public office holders to strictly comply with proper financial management practices has led to corruption, which has the potential to destabilise the country’s social cohesion and economic development when not nipped in the bud,” he added.
He said the seminar was to bridge the knowledge gap and to inculcate in participants the principles of accountability in the management of public offices.
Mr Quansah said it also offered a unique opportunity to develop and enhance the insight of participants into current public sector management practices and research on the concept of accountability and good governance.