(Wednesday 21st November 2018 Issue)
Governor
of Central Bank of The Gambia Bakary Jammeh said on Tuesday that in order to
end extreme poverty and respond to the need of the people, governments of
developing countries must spend their resources in an accountable and
transparent manner
He
said this would allow countries to deliver essential services needed by their
citizens to end extreme poverty. “In
doing so, governments can quickly address issues to foster sustainable,
broad-based economic growth and development as they provide the needs of their
citizens.”
Speaking
at the opening of a five-day regional course on domestic resource mobilization
and economic management organized by West African Institute for Financial and
Economic Management (WAIFEM) at a local
hotel in Senegambia, Governor Jammeh said governments perform many economic
functions, including developing macro-fiscal, frameworks, formulating and
executing budgets.
He
said progress continues to be made in recent decades and many developing
countries are improving their skills to deliver the core functions of
governments that affect public service delivery.
He
said WAIFEM is potentially the biggest source of long term financing for
sustainable development and it is the life blood of all sub national governance
such as the provision of public goods and services.
According to him, WAIFEM can help strengthen
fiscal institutions because a stable and predictable revenue facilitates has a
long term fiscal planning, which can help ensure that resources are allocated
to priority sectors and are translated into desirable outcomes.
He
said despite the challenges, opportunities do exist for enhancing domestic
resource mobilization in Africa
generally and the West African sub-region in particular which includes
inter African trade, broadening the existing tax base, improving tax
administration capacity, rationalization of tax incentives and strengthening
tax policies.
Professor
Akpan H. Ekpo, director general of WAIFEM said the institution was established
in 1996 by central banks of The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra
Leone. He said the principle mandate of the institute is to strengthen capacity
for improved macroeconomic and financial management in the constituent member
countries.
“Since
its inception, the institute has successfully executed 682 courses from which
18, 351 people benefited around the sub-region and beyond.”
He
said WAIFEM has also started e-learning programmes in the public sector
management and French language, saying it has been collaborating with the
United Nations Institute for Training and Research to organize e-learning
certificate course in French.
He
commended Gambia government for accepting them to conduct the training
programme in Banjul. He also thanked the governor of Central Bank of The Gambia
and his team for the excellent logistics support provided.