Speaker inaugurates Parliamentary Platform

Parliament has inaugurated a newly established Parliamentary Platform on Multi Donor Budget Support (MDBS) to bring the Legislature closer to development partners and create a forum for constant engagement on policy related issues.

The platform will create a forum for long term engagement on policy issues and information sharing for the implementation of new strategies and strengthening partnership for parliamentary governance.

It will also link Parliament to the Millennium Development Goals and the proposed Medium Term Development Framework and other national initiatives.

Justice Joyce Adeline Bamford-Addo, Speaker of Parliament, who inaugurated the Platform, said the vulnerability of the economies of developing countries including Ghana was such that augmenting the national budget with such initiative should be welcomed.

She said that since the inception of the MDBS support framework, significant support had been extended to Ghana.

Justice Bamford-Addo said the MDBS had committed $497 million to support Ghana's budget last year, which according to her, had pushed development in the country to appreciable level though not to the level envisioned.

She commended the government for committing itself to making sound micro-economic policies, budgeting, public financial management accountability to the citizenry, sustaining the peace and good governance.

The Speaker said that "the declared official focus of the developing countries after the cold war on aids or development support is towards poverty alleviation and effective promotion of development.

"There persist inherent problems which prevent the recipient country from taking total control of the steering wheel from the driver's seat."

Justice Bamford-Addo noted that the preclusion of Parliament, which she described as the embodiment of the will of the people in the MDBS in Ghana, over the years had not gone down well with many legislators.