The agreement is also aimed at enhancing accountability, efficiency and transparency in the agencies.

The agencies are the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Accreditation Board (NAB), the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority, the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) and the Sunyani Technical University.

The heads of the agencies signed on behalf of their organisations, while the sector ministers of the agencies signed on behalf of the government.

Signing ceremony

The Executive Chairman of the State Enterprise Commission (SEC), Mr Stephen Asamoah Boateng, in a remark at the signing ceremony in Accra yesterday, expressed the optimism that the contract would guide judicious use of public funds in those agencies.

He said contrary to the notion that the introduction of the initiative was to facilitate weaning participating agencies off government subventions, it was to boost monitoring in those institutions.

“However, it will be the best of decisions to wean yourselves off government subventions to your own benefit. I encourage you to do so and the government will gladly support you and after the process,” he said.

Mr Boateng said the public sector did not need political will to thrive and deliver. “Rather you need systems and structures that work. Ghana has settled for democracy so governments will change periodically and, therefore, a working structure is what we need to keep the system going even as government changes,” he said.

He expressed gratitude to the French government for their financial and technical support over the years.

Co-chair

For his part, the co-chair of the occasion, the French Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Francois Pujolas, said the agreement and capacity building of participating agencies were sponsored by the French government as part of the Ghana-France bilateral relations.

He underscored the need for such an initiative in ensuring the efficiency of central and local governance and called on all public agencies that were on government subvention but had not signed the contract to do so for their own benefit.

Ghana –France cooperation project

The contract is part of the Ghana-France cooperation named, “Strengthening the accountability of Ghana's central and local administrations.”

Under the project, France provided a grant of €800, 000 for preparatory works such as capacity building, contract development, road map for the mode, the pace and responsibility of monitoring systems to be put in place to implement the contract.