Mr. Albert Kan-Dapaah, Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament, on Wednesday called for the enactment of a law that would guarantee the professional independence of civil servants and to protect them against victimization.

He added that technocrats should not be “diplomatic” in their bid to ensure that politicians and ministers who had oversight responsibility over them, did the right thing.

Speaking at the second day of a two-day consultative workshop on a revised Ghana Aid Policy and Strategy (GAPS) and Post Busan Framework in Accra, Mr. Kan-Dapaah stressed that those civil servants, especially technocrats, needed to devise proactive means to advise politicians against political excesses.

The workshop was to solicit inputs of stakeholders towards the finalization of the revised Ghana Aid Policy and Strategy (2011-2015), brief them on commitments outlined in the Busan Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (BPd) and to seek inputs for the development of an in-country post Busan framework.

Mr. Kan-Dapaah, who lauded the initiative stressed that political will was critical for the implementation of the documents.

As a method of seeking political will for the implementation of the revised GAPS, he charged civil society groups and the media to double up their efforts towards seeking accountability, responsibility and responsiveness from public servants, particularly, politicians.

Mr. David Oppon-Kusi, a member of the PAC, who is also Member of Parliament for Ofoase-Ayirebi, said there was the need for parliament and its members to be strengthened to act against the excesses of the executive arm of government; some of the excesses which are meant to score political points but may go against national interest.

Mr. Kamil Kamaluddeen, the Country Director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), earlier on called on stakeholders to make meaningful contributions to make the document a national paper that truly represented all sectors.

Mr. Enoch Cobbinah, Chief Director of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP) said the workshop was organized by his ministry and the UNDP to brief participants on the outcome of the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF4) held in Busan, South Korea and to solicit inputs towards the finalization of the revised Ghana Aid Policy and Strategy: 2011-2015.

It should be recalled that prior to HLF-4, MOFEP engaged national stakeholders in a series of workshops to consolidate Ghana’s position on the future of the global aid and development co-operation architecture.

The Government had since endorsed the commitments of the HLF-4 as contained in the outcome BPd document.

The revision of GAPS has been necessitated by the need to incorporate the relevant commitments in the BPd.

The Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation is a new, inclusive forum bringing together a wide range of countries and organisations from around the world that are committed to ensuring that development co-operation is effective and supports the achievement of results.

The Global Partnership emerged from an agreement reached at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, which took place in Busan, Korea in November – December 2011.

It is expected to work to maintain political support and foster engagement among the many, varied actors in the implementation of the agreements reached in Busan.