By Maimuna Sey-Jawo
The West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management, WAIFEM, on Monday started a 5-day regional course on domestic resource mobilisation and economic management at a local hotel in Senegambia.
Speaking at the forum, the first deputy Governor Dr. Saikou Jabbi said in order to deliver the essential services needed to end extreme poverty developing country governments must spend their resources in a transparent manner.
Dr. Jabbi however noted that progress continues to be made in recent decades, with many developing countries improving their skills to deliver the core functions of government that affect public service delivery.
He further revealed that WAIFEM could help strengthen fiscal institutions for stable and predictable revenue and facilitates long term fiscal planning to ensure proper allocation of state resources to priority sectors.
According to him opportunities exist for enhancing domestic resource mobilisation in Africa in general and the West African sub-region in particular which includes inter African trade, broadening the existing tax base, improving tax administration capacity, rationalisation of tax incentives, strengthening tax policies among others
In his opening remarks, Professor Akpan H. Ekpo Director General of WAIFEM recalled that the institution was established with the principle mandate to strengthen capacity for improved macroeconomic and financial management in the constituent member countries.
Since its inception he added, the institute has successfully executed 682 courses courses, which have benefited 18,351 participants from the sub region and beyond.
He added that WAIFEM has also started e-learning programmes in the public sector dept management and the French language. WAIFEM has been collaborating with the United Nations institute for training and research to organise e-learning certificate course in French.
He commended the Gambia government for accepting them to conduct the training programme in Banjul.
