Finance Ministry PS Ggoobi sets agenda for first 100 days

 

Ramathan Ggoobi, the Secretary to the Treasury and Permanent Secretary at the finance ministry has set his agenda for the first 100 days following his appointment to the office.

 

Ggoobi said his agenda for the first 100 days focus on the medium term.

 

He promised to motivate, facilitate and effectively supervise staff.

 

He pledged an internal realignment and reorganisation of functions and staffing to fit the required purpose at the ministry.

 

The new PS also plans to realign planning towards goals set in the National Development Plan III and budget for the COVID-19 realities.

 

His aim is to address the weak enforcement of accountability with visible results.

 

He will enforce a comprehensive and integrated approach to auditing.

 

He wants to make plans and policies fully informed by empirical research.

 

Components of the agenda include; building a strong and vibrant private sector to take advantage of opportunities.

 

Emphasis on pro-business policies as opposed to pro-market reforms. Attention to alleged corruption in the Ministry.

 

He said the immediate agenda focuses on the medium-term tasks: is recovery of the economy, building capacity of economy to create jobs, raise incomes, value addition and robust analysis of economy.

 

Others are mobilization of financial resources, expenditure management, effective policy coordination, rebuilding fiscal space, supporting reform process of larger government, reducing fiscal deficit in the medium term.

 

Ggoobi said technocrats should be asking Ugandans: “Have you seen the results.'

 

Speak through results, “Implementation and accountability are going to be sacred, the difference between what is done and what is said to be done. These will be like a marathon of activities, not just a sprint.”

 

“We need to encourage the government to speak through the results. Officials should be asking the public 'have you seen these results?'” Ggoobi said.

 

“The way we define and measure results in Government is very weak. In Government, the bureaucrats tell you that drafting a policy is a result and an achievement. But what is the policy doing to make lives better”.

 

“If you have drafted a policy, you should report what the policy has achieved in terms of wellbeing, incomes, wealth creation, security, don’t tell me the policy”

 

“The policy is the means, it is not the end, we need to change the way government account and define, paper accountability without field inspections and value or quality, should be discouraged.”

 

He said he wants changes in the wrong ways public sector auditing is done.

 

“The way audits are done; they account on paper but the results are different from the ground. It calls for a review of public sector accounting, the auditor general should give an opinion and change the way accountability is done,” he said.

 

He stressed that he wants to see that the days of accounting on paper are over and that auditing is done at a reasonable cost.