The Economy and Development Committee of Parliament is set to examine the 2024 Annual Progress Reports (APRs) of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) as well as Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) across the country.
Chairman of the Committee, Eric Afful, disclosed in an interview with NR News that the exercise is aimed at verifying the implementation status of proposed projects to ensure value for money.
According to him, the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) which is mandated to prepare the annual progress reports of all government agencies, including district assemblies has finalised the 2024 reports. The committee will soon begin public hearings to interrogate the findings.
Mr. Afful, who is also the Member of Parliament for Amenfi West, explained that the hearings will provide an opportunity to track the use of allocated resources and confirm whether projects are being executed in line with the Public Financial Management Act and other statutory provisions.
“NDPC prepares the APRs, annual progress reports of all ministries, departments, agencies, the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies, that document is ready for 2024. We are going to peruse it, and make sure that all what they have done, go in the spirit of the Public Financial Management Act and other statutes of this country. So we are on it, very soon, we would be meeting the ministries, agencies and departments to peruse whatever they have in the progress report produced by the NDPC”, Hon Eric Afful explained.
The MP further revealed that the committee has already engaged the Bank of Ghana (BoG) on its operations. Under its mandate, the central bank is expected to report to Parliament twice a year.
With oversight responsibility over the NDPC, the BoG, and related institutions, the Economy and Development Committee is tasked with preventing excesses in government spending through proactive monitoring of development projects. This approach, Mr. Afful stressed, focuses on prevention rather than the “post-mortem” reviews carried out by the Public Accounts Committee after financial irregularities have occurred.
The committee is one of the newly established finance-related committees of Parliament, created following a review of the House’s Standing Orders. It is designed to strengthen parliamentary oversight of public spending and ensure that government agencies utilise state funds responsibly while projects are being executed.
