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A participant making contributions. Image: NII MARTEY M. BOTCHWAY
The Economic Governance Platform (EGP), a umbrella body of 15 civil society organizations (CSOs), called for the restructuring or removal of the Advisory Council on Fiscal Responsibility (FRAC) created by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
According to the group, the current arrangements under which the board was fully controlled by the president made it unsustainable because its existence would be complicated by the president's mandate.
Rather, the group advocates a redesign of the system to make the independent board of executive control, arguing that it is the best way to ensure that the public has access to relevant information about the work of the board.
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Mr. Errol Graham, Senior Economist at IMF Ghana, Speaks a Few Words
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On February 12 of this year, the government inaugurated a seven-member FRAC to advise the president on fiscal discipline.
The members of the Presidential FRAC are Dr. Paul Acquah, President; Mr. Abdallah Ali-Nakyea, Professor Eugena Amporful and Dr. Nii Noi Ashong.
The others are Professors Augustine Fosu, Robert Osei and Nii Kwaku Sowa.
The main function of the board is to "develop and recommend to the President fiscal responsibility policies for the maintenance of prudent and sustainable debt levels, to maintain a balanced budget at a sustainable level. and manage the fiscal risks prudently. to achieve efficiency, efficiency and optimization of public spending. "
concerns
However, at a round table held in Accra yesterday, CSOs said that the establishment of the council under the president was not in line with international best practices.
The workshop was organized by the World Bank in collaboration with EGP and Oxfam, NGOs, to discuss the pros and cons of the government's tax systems.
The director of Progressive Economic Consulting, a private entity, Dr. John Kwabena Kwakye, said in its current form that the FRAC was inclined to compromise on the part of the presidency.
"The problem we have with the FRAC is that board members have been appointed by the chair, attached to the chair, and funded by the chair.
We do not think it's fair because it would compromise their independence.
"Ideally, they are supposed to be a way to control the executive, because that's what international best practices say," he added.
According to the Director, in other jurisdictions where members of these tax bodies were appointed by the President, there were powerful checks and balances and parliamentary oversight to ensure the integrity of the board.
"This is not what our system provides because after council members have advised the president, the public deserves to know what's going on, but we do not even know if the advice will be made public," he said. he declared.
Mr. Kwakye added that the ideal was to dissolve the board and appoint the members in a systematic process.
He added that Parliament and the Public Service Commission (PSC) could become a part of the board member recruitment body through a process of appeal. offers.
Restructuring
For his part, the Executive Director of the Center for Policy Analysis, Joseph L. S. Abbey, said the FRAC needs to be restructured to make it accountable to the public.
"For CSOs, it's kind of a disappointment because the current FRAC published is not worth what we asked because the board should be politically independent to serve the interests of society," he said. -He underlines.
The Director observed that while the caliber of board appointees had healthy moral values and integrity, the environment in which they operated could jeopardize their work.
The World Bank Director for Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone; Henry Kerali also requested that steps be taken to make the FRAC independent.
An independent fiscal council would help give credibility to the government's financial statements and policies.
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