Officials get training on public spending, financial accountability

The World Bank has assembled a team of financial management experts to conduct an intense three-day workshop on the design and application of an appropriate Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) framework.



The workshop, being held in Kingston between today and Wednesday, has attracted 45 senior public sector officials including ministers of finance from seven Caribbean and Latin American countries, the Bank said in a release.



Explaining the rationale for the World Bank’s involvement in the project, Country Representative for Jamaica Giorgio Valentini explained:



“The Bank’s support to core public sector institutions — such as ministries of finance, procurement agencies, and the civil service more broadly — include assistance for improving their capacity, efficiency, transparency, and accountability in key functions like budget formulation, implementation, monitoring and oversight, procurement, and performance management.”



The goals of the programme, which forms the basis of this intervention, are to strengthen the ability of partner countries and donor agencies to assess the condition of country public expenditure, procurement and financial accountability systems, and develop a practical sequence of reform and capacity-building actions.



Workshop co-ordinator, Senior Financial Management Specialist at the World Bank’s Latin America & Caribbean region, Mozammal Hoque, expresses the desire to see an application of the principles shared in a manner that will encourage ownership of the process by the respective governments, resulting in a reduction of transaction costs while enhancing the harmonization of various donor accounts.



Properly adopted, Hoque added, the programme “will allow the member states to more effectively monitor their own progress over time, thereby building their internal capacity to addresses developmental and fiduciary concerns, resulting in improved impact of the reforms under funding.”



The workshop was specifically requested by the Planning Institute of Jamaica, which has overarching responsibility for monitoring projects under international funding on the island.



It subsequently escalated to a regional event to secure economies of scale and further enrichment from the cross-national exchanges.



Post conference support expected from the Washington-based Secretariat for the programme will include:

• Development and maintenance of the framework in each territory

• Support and guidance to users of the framework at country level

• Development of training programmes and materials for assessors and task team leaders(consultants, donors, and government staff).



Valentini, who also has programme responsibility for Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago and Suriname, also underlined the imperative of embracing such an opportunity at the state level.



"Governments must spend public money efficiently and effectively, especially if economic growth and poverty reduction goals are to be achieved. The quality of public expenditure management affects all citizens, not least of all through the provision of public services such as public transport, health care, education, and social protection," he said.



PEFA is a multi-agency partnership programme sponsored by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission, the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs.



business@gleanerjm.com