The Minister of Finance and Economic Planning of the Republic of Ghana, Honorable Kenneth Ofori Atta in the presentation of the 2024 Financial Year Budget on Wednesday, November 15 2023 indicated that the government has developed a ‘Spending Arrears Clearance and Prevention Strategy’ which has been approved by Cabinet for implementation to ensure effective spending of government.

According to Mr Ken Ofori Atta the formulation and implementation of the ‘Spending Arrears Clearance and Prevention Strategy’ is part of government measures to achieve the objective of bringing public finances back on a sustainable path through improved efficiency in public spending.

He also noted that to clear the existing stock of arrears of government, the Ghana Audit Service has begun the verification and validation of the arrears identified at the end of December 2022 before payments are made.

The Finance Minister further indicated that to prevent the accumulation of new arrears, the government has put in place measures to enhance commitment controls and prevent the accumulation of arrears.

According to him, the various measures include the Alignment of the quarterly budget allotments with cash flow forecast and tightening the use of allotments as a control on the Government Integrated Financial Management System (GIFMIS) rather than the budget starting with the 2024 budget.

Again, Mr Ken Ofori Atta recounted that Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MDAs) would be required to revise their cash plans every quarter to reflect the allotments received over the year and remaining requirements.

“The Cash plan module on Oracle Hyperion will be reconfigured by December 2023 after completing all stakeholder engagements, in line with the system’s functionalities, which will be deployed to the various MDAs. MDAs will be trained on how to use the system to enable them to update their cash plans quarterly. This will ensure that MDAs can revise their cash plans within the window provided. Standardize contracts for public works to ensure flexibility in budget execution”
Ken-Ofori Atta

Government To Improve Budget Execution Practices

Moreover, the Finance Minister, Mr Ken-Ofori Atta revealed that the government would undertake several steps and measures to improve government budget implementation practices.

He noted that the government would ensure the approval of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MDAs) commencement requests to be done within the first quarter of any fiscal year to allow MDAs sufficient time to complete procurement and payment processes before the end of the year.

Again, Mr Ken Ofori indicated that in line with government policy directives, the Internal Audit Agency would ensure that public officers within covered entities adhere to the legal and regulatory principles governing public financial management in the discharge of their duties.

“All public officers, particularly Principal Spending Officers of covered entities will be held to the strict application of the specified in Sections 96 to 98 of the PFM Act”.
Ken-Ofori Atta

According to Mr Ken-Ofori Atta, the government through the Ministry of Finance has established a Compliance Desk at the Finance Ministry as part of the internal audit function of the Ministry to closely track the tender advertisements from Covered Entities to ensure that they have allotment and are on the Ghana Electronic Procurement System (GHANEPS).

He noted that if such Covered Entities fail to comply with the available laws, the Compliance Desk will immediately seek an explanation and refer such infractions under the Public Financial Management System to the Attorney-General through the Legal Directorate of the Ministry for advice or penalty actions against such entities.

Additionally, the Finance Minister, Mr Ken-Ofori Atta stressed his commitment to abide by the provisions of the Public Financial Management Act as established by Parliament.

He indicated that over the past seven years, he has laid before Parliament 55 statutory reports to fulfil the provisions of the Public Financial Management Act, which include the Annual Report on the Petroleum Funds; and the Report on the Utilization of the African Union Levies.

“Mr. Speaker, the Public Financial Management Act, 2016, Act 921, was passed to regulate the financial management of the public sector within a macroeconomic and fiscal framework. This law sets out stringent accounting, audit, and reporting requirements for public funds. As the First Finance Minister to oversee the implementation of this critical law, I can confidently say that this Government has been the most transparent and accountable in our history”.
Ken-Ofori Atta