The Finance Ministry will from Monday 16th March, begin what it calls policy hearings to solicit from Ministries, Departments and Agencies, (MDAs) collaborative policy interventions and funding for the 2016 budget.
[contextly_sidebar id=”yDQxUt6ELiZOjF47FKjCEAkFGNlRZNgn”]According to a statement from the Finance Ministry, the “policy objectives as outlined in the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda (GSGDA II)” will help to “avoid policy duplication and identify common areas in a sector for collaborative policy interventions and funding.”
The early commencement of the policy hearings is to give the Finance Ministry, enough time to prepare a more holistic and workable budget for 2016.
The National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) will also be part of the meeting.
This is the first time the policy hearings are being organised separately from the Technical Hearings, which is a difference approach from the practice of organising both hearings at the same time in recent years.
Last Thursday, Finance Minister Seth Terkper had to reappear before Parliament to apprise them of how the continuous fall in crude oil prices had taken a toll on the 2015 budget, and had forced government to lower the projected oil revenues by about 64%.
“The policy hearings have been structured on sectoral basis beginning with the Administration Sector,” the statement added.
The hearings are scheduled from 16th to 30th March, 2015 and are going to be jointly chaired by the Minister for Finance Seth Terkper and the Director-General of the National Development Planning Commission.
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By: Nana Boakye-Yiadom/citifmonline.com/Ghana