Mills Meets MCA CEO

President John Atta Mills yesterday held a meeting with the Acting Chief Executive of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, Darius Mans and his executives in Washington to discuss issues relating to the Millennium Challenge Account.

The meeting took stock of the challenges the government has been facing with the implementation of the compact and also the success chalked so far.

Mr. Mans noted that Ghana will be half way through the implementation in some two months, and suggested that the government can reallocate resources or make adjustments across the programme where there are difficulties.

He was happy that there are concrete results of the implementation of the compact, adding that of all the nineteen programmes, Ghana has achieved half of that.

Mr. Mans assured President Mills that the Corporation is ready to assist the Government to successfully implement the programme, noting that they are happy to be associated with the success story of Ghana.

He was particularly excited by the President’s repeated insistence on Ghana’s interest in Aid and not Trade. He hinted of a second programme for which Ghana will be one of the first Nations to be considered due to her outstanding performance coming up once the board of the Millennium Challenge Corporation meets and sets the criteria for eligibility.

Minister for Finance Dr. Kwabena Dufuor raised concerns about the fact that Ghanaian contractors are excluded from the programme, especially for projects in the Afram Plains.

He noted that the government will be grateful if the Ghanaian contractors are considered and also allowed to partner with foreign firms to undertake some of the contracts.

The minister also expressed concern that Cables and Wireless have not been considered in the initial budget allocated to Ghana, indicating that there is a shortfall of forty million dollars ($40,000,000.00) which has become a burden on the government.

Responding, Mr. Mans stated that of all the 300,000 contracts awarded, 90% has been awarded to Ghanaian Contractors but the difficulty these local contractors face is the size of their firms and their capacity to successfully implement the contract. He thus suggested that such Ghanaian firms merge with other local firms or even go into partnerships with other international firms to be able to be eligible for these contracts.

He also stated that the Millennium Challenge Corporation is not in a position to contribute extra resources to finance the short fall in the allocation of resources and that the Government should contribute the short fall of $40m.

The Corporation’s team also recognised as one of the challenges, the fact that the procurement procedure is rigorous since the system needs to be fair and transparent. They suggested that procurement capacity should be built in that respect.

Minister for Trade and Industry, Ms. Hannah Tetteh on her part said the government appreciates the work done in the Pineapple sector and that the programme has not only built capacity in that sector, but improved the lives of the small scale farmers in that sector.

The president assured the Corporation’s team that the government is on track and that it is determined to come out with a success story. The president further assured the team that despite the challenges, the government is ready to fully cooperate with the Corporation for it to succeed. He said that although Ghana has made some strides in the compact’s implementation, we are faced with infrastructural development which we need to overcome.

Source: (Office of the President)