Govt adopts mid-year measures to consolidate gains

In its quest to improve management and performance monitoring in government’s partial or full equity holdings in corporations, authorities and companies, an equity study is currently being undertaken by the Ministry of Finance to identify such holdings.

Subsequently, the ministry intends to present a proposal to transfer the equity holdings to what it describes as a Fiscal Trust, as is the practice with the Bank of Ghana and many countries.

The Finance Minister, Mr Seth Terkper, announced this in Parliament when he presented the mid-year budget review and supplementary estimates of the government to the House yesterday.

The move, he said, formed part of a number of mid-year measures the government was adopting to enhance policies approved by the House, adding: “The purpose is to further consolidate the gains made.”

Infrastructure guarantee facility

He said the government intended to continue with measures to reduce the number of sovereign guarantees provided directly by the government in particular to support commercial projects.

“As noted, we have made progress in using insurance and partial risk guarantees issued by the multilateral institutions,” he said.

In that regard, he said, feasibility studies would be undertaken on establishing a dedicated domestic guarantee facility that could provide risk mitigation and credit enhancement to support long-term infrastructure financing in Ghana.

“This initiative may result in the amendment of the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF) Law to facilitate the setting up of a Guarantee Fund by GIIF,” Mr Terkper said.

Revamping broiler programme

Mr Terkper said to further reduce the import bill, the broiler revitalisation project, which is expected to lead to the production of 20 million broilers and result in 60,000 metric tonnes of poultry meat, had taken off.

He said measures such as that and the earlier boost to pharmaceutical and rice sectors were designed to reduce the country’s import dependency.

“However, the success of the broiler programme is threatened by the recent outbreak of Avian influenza, also known as bird flu, in the Greater Accra Region and other parts of the country,” he said.

He said that had led to the destruction of many birds, resulting in the loss of revenue.

Subsequently, he said, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and other agencies were taking prompt steps to stem the spread of the disease in the country.

Investment incentives

The Finance Minister said given the importance of changing the orientation of government policies in support of exports, the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) would be required to put more emphasis on incentives for exporters.