…Minister Ngafuan Urges Heads Of Entities and Ministries
By: G Bennie Bravo Johnson I
Liberia’s Minister of Finance Development Planning, Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan has urged heads of ministries and agencies to use their Budget wisely, by understanding the rules of the budget and aligning their budget with their institutions’ execution.
He asserted that two ministries can have the same budget, but one can execute wisely, while the other does not; adding that it depends on how each ministry manages its budget. “It is not how your budget is, it is how you use it. The reason why the government expects better budget execution this year is that last year, there were transition challenges for which the budget had to be recast, submitted in April, and passed almost in May, and the same recast budget had to be reversed again two times. Due to that, planning on the part of ministries and agencies was a challenge. Now, ministries and agencies have a year to plan for which there should be no excuse to do better,” he explained.
Speaking Thursday, January 9, 2025, at the beginning of a three-day workshop on the effective execution of the Fiscal Year 2025 National Budget, Minister Ngafuan further charged heads of Government Ministries and Agencies to manage what has been allocated for them in the National Budget.
He urged ministers and directors who were appointed around April, not to have the mentality of executing their entities or ministries’ budget within nine months; adding that doing so would exhaust their budgets before the budget year. “While it is true we recognize that some ministers and directors were appointed around April, having a mentality of budget execution for nine months will exhaust the budget, and your entity or ministry will turn broke soon. This budget is not for three, six, or nine months, but twelve months,” Minister Ngafuan narrated.
The Liberian Finance Minister called on heads of governmental institutions to do quarterly and yearly planning; saying it will help during the budget execution.
For her part, the Deputy Minister for Budget and Development Planning, Tanneh G. Brunson said the workshop is designed to refresh and deepen the understanding of policymakers and technical staff from spending entities on key fiscal rules, budget execution procedures, monitoring, and reporting.
According to her, the initiative is critical to enhancing the capacity of spending entities to execute their budgets efficiently and responsibly. The Deputy Minister for Budget and Development Planning revealed that by equipping participants with the necessary knowledge and tools, the workshop will help ensure that public funds are used effectively to meet the needs of citizens while supporting the government’s broader development goals.
She said the workshop is to ensure the FY2025 budget is executed in alignment with the approved National Budget; deepen the understanding of fiscal rules, policies, processes, and procedures associated with budget execution, monitoring, and reporting, strengthen the capacity of spending entities to deliver timely and responsible financial and performance reporting; and foster better inter- and intra-ministerial coordination to promote the efficient, accountable, and responsible use of public funds.
