Maimuna Sey-Jawo
“Public Finance Management Reforms (PFM) cannot be successfully implemented without the involvement of civil society organisations to the current PMF reforms programme being undertaken by the government of The Gambia,” according to the deputy permanent secretary at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs.
DPS Yaya Drammeh was speaking Tuesday, during the opening of a two-day forum on public finance management, organised by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs (MoFEA) in collaboration with the UNDP.
Drammeh said: “The Civil Society organisations have the capacity and dissemination network in reinforcing government’s effort in ensuring efficient and effective public finance management through its various initiatives that ensure that there is a high-level of transparency and accountability.
“It is in this regard that the public finance management directorate of the ministry of finance appreciates the need to have an annual forum with CSOs. This year’s forum will be centered on the Treasury Single Account (TSA) which is being pursued by the government of The Gambia,” he explained.
He said the objective of the forum was to ensure an effective management of aggregated government funds in order to provide real time access to finance information regarding revenue and expenditures as the government looks to improve transparency and accountability of public funds.
Ousman Yabou, director of Tango, said: “When we talk about civil organisations engagement with government, people think that civil organisations are here to criticise the government which is not the case. Their work is about sensitising the people to ensure that grass roots people are aware of what is being done particularly by government.”
He said the consultation will help in supporting accountability mechanisms for the finance ministry.
The two-day convergence was not only organised for the CSOs but members of the media, to sensitise them on the Treasury Single Account and other PFM reforms by the government.
