News:
September 9, 2019
Ghana’s Parliament will for the first time host the fourth African Network of Parliamentary Budget Officers from Monday September 9, 2019 in Accra.
Participants from ten (10) countries are expected to attend this conference including South Africa, Kenya, Zambia, Uganda, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Canada, and Cambodia.
The conference is on the theme, “role of Africa Parliaments in budget and fiscal oversight: contributing to the African Union 2063 Development Agenda”.
The Global Network of Parliamentary Budget Officers was established in 2013 to enhance the practices of PBOs and other analysts that support their respective Parliaments and Parliamentarians in the budget process.
Picking a cue from this, in 2016, Parliamentary Budget Officers from African countries also decided to form a network to focus on the peculiar challenges confronting the Parliaments of Africa in the budgetary process.
The conference would create a platform for sharing information among countries with PBOs and as a resource centre for countries contemplating of establishing budget offices, with lessons to be drawn from experiences of other countries, including non-African countries.
Ghana’s seventh Parliament under the leadership of its current Speaker Professor Aaron Michael Oquaye has started a reform programme where it has plans to establish a full operational budget and fiscal analysis office.
The office when established would provide technical support services to Members of Parliament in the area of policy and economic impact analysis as well as fiscal analysis of bills to serve as means to overcoming the challenges with the introduction of Private Members Bill pursuant to Article 108 of the constitution.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com