Post-budget workshop held for Parliamentary leadership

page 16, 30/11/07
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah
THE fifth post-budget workshop for the leadership of Parliament and selected officials from the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) has ended in Koforidua in the Eastern Region.
The Parliamentary Centre, a Canadian non-governmental organisation (NGO), organised the workshop in partnership with Parliament with financial support from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
According to Dr Rasheed Draman of the Parliamentary Centre, the NGO saw the budget process as the heart of the relationship between the Legislature and Executive.
“It is the basis of public financial accountability and there is no better time than now to strengthen Parliament’s role in the budget cycle.”
The workshop, therefore, provided a forum for MPs to have a fair understanding of the MDAs performance in 2007 and their proposals for 2008.
During the workshop, presentations of the MDAs compared 2007 provisional expenditure outcomes with the 2007 budgets as detailed in the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) for 2007-2009