Finance Ministry reschedules $535 million signing agreement with World Bank

Finance Minister Kwabena Duffour

The Ministry of Finance has postponed the signing ceremony for the $535 million agreement with the World Bank.
The agreement was supposed to have been signed Tuesday morning but officials at the ministry say it had to be postponed because of miscommunication.

No new date has as yet been agreed.

The board of the World Bank approved a $535 million donor package to Ghana for budgetary support.
The amount is the biggest ever to be approved for the country in one sitting of the board of executive directors.
Some $300 million of the money is the bank’s contribution to Ghana’s multi-donor budget support facility and would go to assist programmes lined up in the budget.

According to government sources, $225 million of the amount is earmarked as investment that will go into road construction and other projects in the transport sector with the remaining 10 million dollars going to support programmes aimed at preserving the environment.

The facility which has already been ratified by Parliament will has come although the World Bank Country Director, Ishac Diwan, had originally pointed to some conditionalities that needed to be satisfied before the funds would be advanced.

Source: Myjoyonline.com