In accordance with Regulation 17(3) of the Public Financial Management Regulations,2019, LI 2378 as well as paragraph 158 of the 2024-2027 Budget Preparation Guidelines, the Greater Accra Regional Coordinating Council(GARCC) in collaboration with Ministry of Finance on Monday 9th October 2023, organized this year’s Regional Budget Hearing for all the 29 MMDAs in the region.
The hearing is aimed at deepening participatory budgeting and accountability at the local level.
Delivering his address, the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Hon. Henry Quartey, directed Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) in the region to ensure that their financial transactions are processed on the Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) platform.
He further reminded them that the use of GIFMIS for processing of public funds was a legal requirement under section 25(6) of the Public Financial Management (PFM) Act and, therefore, failure to comply with the provision would attract sanctions as stipulated in section 98(1) of the Act.
Hon. Quartey noted that in view of the hearing, the region has been constituted into 10 zones where a maximum of three assemblies per zone will converge on a host Assembly and present their budget under the guidance of a national technical working team and the Regional Coordinating Council.
He intimated that as part of the mandate of the RCC, the Regional Planning Co-ordinating Unit carried out a monitoring exercise to assess the extent to which the sub-structures of the assemblies were functional and delivering their mandate as outlined in the LI 1967.
He said findings from the exercise showed that most sub-structures were operating partially and encountering challenges such as inadequate office space, staffing, logistics and funding, among others.He added that the Chief Executives must take measures to ensure that they mobilise enough revenue for development purposes.
The Director-General of the Internal Audit Agency, Dr. Eric Oduro Osae, who is the Head of the technical team providing technical backstopping for the MMDAs also said that the use of the GIFMIS was a legal requirement.
He, therefore, said it was incumbent upon MMDCEs to ensure that all budgetary and financial transactions were carried out through the system to streamline reporting and also enable prompt decision-making.Dr Osae added that compliance with
GIFMIS was instrumental in eliminating audit irregularities.