In a bid to improve fiscal and financial transparency, accountability and public participation within districts, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, in partnership with various stakeholders on Tuesday launched the Local Government Public Finance Management (PFM) support programme and revenue collection project. The execution of the project will involve deployment of PFM experts in provinces to offer technical expertise in planning, budgeting, procurement and accounting to districts and subsidiary entities. The Permanent Secretary and Secretary to Treasury Caleb Rwamuganza noted that the project was in line with government policy to decentralize service delivery and empower local communities to take part in decisions making process. “Based on this trend, resources managed by decentralised entities have kept increasing year on year. While remarkable improvement in public finance management at the decentralised level has been made, districts should obtain clean audit reports on financial statements, improve audit opinion on compliance especially on subsidiary entities that use a big part of districts’ budget,” Rwamuganza said at the launch of the project. The Government’s decentralisation initiative aims at making all policies and programmes citizen centered. Initiatives have been put in place to ensure transparency and accountability in public finance management. These range from making key budget documents publically available to promoting participation in resource allocation and results monitoring. Sarah Metcalf, the head of the UK Department for International Development (DfID Rwanda), underscored her organisation’s commitment to supporting the process noting that the project would strengthen the country’s PFM systems especially at the district levels. The launch of the Project attracted provincial and district officials, PFM experts as well as officials from both the Ministry of Finance and Local Government. editor@newtimesrwanda.com
