Monrovia – The Chairman of the Governance Commission, Dr. Amos C. Sawyer, says the exercise of putting together a Ministry of Finance and Development Planning as a separate entity is one of the pioneering initiatives of the government that has yet taken place.
“To create the exercise of putting together a new Ministry of Finance and Development Planning out of two separate entities and to create a new entity out of all of this in addition to the new Ministry has been one of the pioneering government reform initiatives that has taken place and I think it offers considerably good lesson for other reform activities that we have undertaken”, says Dr. Sawyer.
The former interim president made this assertion during the formal launching of the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning three year strategic Plan and the Economic stewardship report.
The three year strategic Plan which started in June 2015 will end in June 2018 while the Economic stewardship report, which also began in 2012, will end in 2016 and is going to setup the goal of the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning.
The Chairman of the Governance Commission added that the land authority is about to come into being.
He says, it will bring some section of another ministry to work in a new environment and in a new configuration.
“Sometimes we underestimate the challenges and we learned lesson from what were done here at the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning. There are some lessons also learnt from here that helps to inform the work in creating the new Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, taking away part of what was the social welfare department of Ministry of Health and reconfiguring the Ministry of Health”, said Dr. Sawyer.
He continued “These are not easy reforms. They are not simply the matter of changing the front of the building and putting in new billboards. They require new thoughts, new structures, new functions and all of this.”
Dr. Sawyer congratulated the outgoing Minister of Finance and Development Planning for his stewardship at the ministry during what he termed a difficult period.
“If you look globally at the scenario, you came at the time when we thought we were having great promise and then the unexpected happened.”
He also admonished the outgoing Minister for building the institution, something he says, is an attestation when he was called by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to be chair of the steering committee that created the new Ministry of Finance and Development Planning.
“In my many years, I can confess here that the dynamics of that process has taught me lesson.”
J.H. Webster Clayeh (0886729972)[email protected]