Accra, Sept. 30, GNA - President John Evans Atta Mills has lashed out at public institutions which have given virtually negative responses to the requisite monthly updates of data for effective monitoring and evaluation.

" I'm saddened by the information that almost two years after the administration of first Baseline Data Questionnaire, a substantial number o= f Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs and Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) have either failed to respond or have responde= d with data that are not susceptible to scientific analysis," the President said on Thursday.

Launching the Policy Performance Management System and the National Conference on the Policy Evaluation and Oversight Unit (PEOU) of the Office of the President in Accra, President Mills emphasised that the affairs of the nation could not be managed without up to date and reliable records. The System, created by the PEOU, is a national Databank that embraces policies and programmes and projects being pursued by MDAs and MMDAs, and houses vital statistics such as staff data, Government pay rolls details, the national debt stock and Government loans approved by Parliament and disbursed by the Ministry of Finance.

The system fulfills an electoral promise of the ruling Government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for effective monitoring of public secto= r institutions. President Mills said the functional importance of the system was that it would eliminate the lack of record keeping among public institutions. "We cannot continue to manage the affairs of this country without up- to-date records of where we are coming from, what we have achieved, what ha= s been the developmental impact of the achievements and what needs to be done and how far we are going to proceed", President Mills warned at the launching.

It was attended by the Speaker of Parliament, Ministers of State, Chie= f Directors, members and staff of Parliament, heads of public sector organisations and development partners. President Mills urged the participants to access the system, not only as data providers but also as participants in the performance-tracking of the programmes and projects they were implementing and in the evaluation of the developmental impact of what they claimed they had achieved. "If you send erroneous or incomplete information to the Databank, th= e system will analyse and give you equally useless or misleading feedback." The President observed that the system had been institutionalised as an organic part of Ghana's public administration, and that its infrastructur= e was trans-generational. It is ideologically neutral and capable of adoption by future Governments= , as well as adaptable to the peculiar policies and projects of succeeding regimes.