Composite budget for Western Region launched

Mr Ebenezer Teye Addo, Western Regional Minister, has launched the 2014 regional budget of the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) for consideration.

The composite budget is the aggregate of projected revenues and expenditures of departments under the MMDAs and coordinating directorate.

The new budgeting system does not only seek to make the implementation of district programmes transparent but will also determine the inflow and outflow of resources and present a unified approach for district planning and budgeting system in addition to a uniform system of monitoring, evaluation and reporting.

Speaking at the function, Mr Addo said the budget hearing would provide the platform for the plans and estimates of the assemblies and decentralised departments to be reviewed to ensure that they are in accordance with the Government’s micro-economics policy frame work.

It would also ensure that funds allocated would be utilised to implement the national’s development priorities.

The Regional Minister said even though the composite budget concept was introduced as far back as 1988, it was only in 2003 that serious efforts were made to implement it, when it was piloted in 25 districts, which included Tarkwa Nsueam and Jomoro district assemblies.

He said the exercise was extended to all MMDAs in 2007 using the MTEF-Activity based budgeting approach and the active software provided by the Ministry of Finance.

Mr Addo said the idea behind the policy was to avoid wastage of public funds in abandoned projects.

He said the MMDAs are required to comply with the directive and ensure that there is value for money in everything they do.

Mr Addo said if they fail to manage the resources at their disposal, their annual ritual of budget preparation would have very little impact on the lives of the people and would be rendered meaningless.

He said it was, therefore, their collective responsibility to safeguard the public purse to the benefit of the people whom they were employed to serve.

Mrs Christina Kobinah, Tarkwa Nsueam Municipal Chief Executive, said the proper execution of programmes and projects by the MMDAs based on the implementation of the composite budget system is a prerequisite for the flow of financial resources from the Central Government.

Source: GNA