Budget of Office of Government Machinery slashed by Parliament

Parliament has cut down the budget of the Office of Government Machinery which includes expenditure items for the Office of the President, Vice President and the Cabinet Secretariat, among others.

The allocation to the Office of the Government Machinery was reduced from One Billion, Four Hundred and Twenty-Eight Million, Three Hundred and Three Thousand, Six Hundred and Thirty-Four Ghana Cedis (GHC1,428,303,634.00) to One Billion, Four Hundred and Ten Million, Seven Hundred and Twelve Thousand, Nine Hundred and Twelve Ghana Cedis (GHC1,410,712,912.00).

The Finance Committee hived off an amount of GHC15,568,802 and GHC2,021,920 which were allocated for Special Development Initiatives Secretariat and the Monitoring and Evaluation Secretariat respectively.

According to the Finance Committee report read by its Chairman, Kweku Kwarteng, on the Floor of the House on Wednesday, December 21, 2022,

“The Committee after thoroughly considering the estimates came to a consensus that the National Development Authorities established by law are capable of managing their affairs without the need for a bureaucratic secretariat to coordinate (and at times duplicate) the functions of these authorities whilst ambulance operations ought to properly be handled by the National Ambulance Service and not the SDI secretariat.

“Also, the monitoring and evaluation function is performed across MDAs and MMDAs and hence there is no compelling need to maintain a secretariat for same, especially in an era where expenditure rationalization is of utmost importance.”

The Office of Government Machinery comprises: The Office of the President and other Agencies including the Vice President Secretariat, Office of the Chief of Staff, Cabinet Secretariat, Press Secretariat, Millennium Development Authority (MiDA), Public Sector Reforms Secretariat (PSRS), Policy Coordination and Delivery Unit.

As well as the Public Enterprises; Ghana AIDS Commission; State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA); Commissions and Councils; National Population Council; Ghana Investment Promotion Centre; Internal Audit Agency; Office of the Administrator-General; and Scholarship Secretariat.

Others are the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC); National Identification Authority; Inner City and Zongo Development; Special Development Initiatives including the Northern Development Authority, Middle Belt Development Authority, Coastal Development Authority; and Monitoring and Evaluation.

Source: Clement Akoloh||parliamentnews360.com