Private public partnership needed to fill infrastructure gap

Elvis Afriyie Ankrah

Elvis Afriyie Ankrah A Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, has admonished ministries, government institutions and agencies implementing World Bank projects in the country to seek radical ways of executing and expediting action on those projects to help improve the lives of the people.

He said the situation where millions of dollars approved for projects to alleviate poverty and bring some comfort to the vast majority of the people remained in bank vaults for several months and sometimes years because of disagreements on procedural processes between bank officials and technocrats of implementing agencies was unacceptable and must be curtailed.

Mr Afriyie-Ankrah made the observation at a three-day Country Portfolio Performance Review (CPPR) 2012 held for the World Bank and the Government of Ghana under the auspices of the Ministry of Finance to review the implementation status of all the 31 projects being funded by the bank in the country, to identify challenges for practical solutions and to determine the way forward for the projects.

The deputy minister urged the participants from both the World Bank and ministries and their project implementing agencies to brainstorm and come up with innovative ways of resolving the bottlenecks and bureaucracies which delayed projects and that project implementation would continue to be stalled if they continued to do things in the same old ways.

He said it was unfortunate for President Mills to traverse the world looking for aid and funds from development partners for the betterment of the citizens only for such funds to be locked up for reasons of procedure and processes.

The World Bank Country Director in Ghana, Mr Yusupha Crookes, said with the government’s determination to promote inclusiveness, transparency and increased production, the Ghanaian economy would continue to grow faster than six per cent annually and thereby reduce poverty.

He said the ultimate delight and objective of the bank laid in the outcome and benefits of its projects to the beneficiaries and urged the implementing agencies and bank officials to always be mindful of the development objectives of all projects.

The Chief Director of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Enoch Hemans Cobbina, disclosed that the current total World Bank and Government of Ghana portfolio stood at $1.743 billion as of April, 2012, covering infrastructure, energy, agriculture and rural development, social and human development and the private sector.

Prof. Bruce Benuoa Yakubu, the Chief Director of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, whose ministry is implementing the second Ghana Land Administration Project (LAP-2), expressed the appreciation of the government to the World Bank for what he described as their “timely intervention and support to the sustainable development efforts of the country.”