Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, has signed a loan agreement with the African Development Bank (ADB) for 23.3 million dollars for the health sector.

In addition a grant of about 1.2 million dollars for the health sector was given to Ghana by the ADB to help the government's efforts at improving health service delivery.

Mr Osafo-Maafo, who has just returned from the meeting of African Finance Ministers and Annual meeting of the ADB in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was briefing Journalists in Accra on what transpired at the meeting.

He said for the first time the ADB provided financial support to ECOWAS in its regional integration programme and Ghana being the current Chairman of ECOWAS, he signed co-operation agreement between ADB and ECOWAS on behalf of President John Agyekum Kufuor.

He said although the ADB had successful financial results in 2002, Ghana was not happy about its performance and urged the Bank to distinguish between financial performance and development performance.

"It is important that the ADB be judged by its development effectiveness in member countries, as measured by progress made towards attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)."

Mr Osafo-Maafo said while about 80 per cent of Africans did not have water and shelter, the ADB could not have been said to be performing creditably in the area of development.

To this effect Ghana and Nigeria had tasked the Bank to provide water to at least five African countries before their next meeting in December and this would continue until all African countries had water to meet their daily need.

He said the Niger Finance Minister had created a clearer picture of how Niger women used most of their time going round to look for drinking water.

The Minister expressed the hope that if the Bank could provide water for five countries in every six months, the continent's water problem would have been solved.

Ghana, the Minister said, suggested that ADB should have an additional window for the private sector, which would not have the sovereign guarantee element so that private companies in Africa that were performing well could approach ADB for loans on their own merits.

The suggestion, he said, stemmed from the fact that about 82 per cent of the Bank's profit was lying idle, which on the other hand could have been extended to the private sector in the form of loans.

Mr Osafo-Maafo said at their constituency caucus meeting which comprised the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana and Sudan, they resolved to suspend Liberia for non-payment of dues for five years.

He said by law, if a country failed to honour its dues constantly for three years, it ceased to be a vote-carrying member.

"Liberia can attend our meetings but when it comes to voting on an issue, it cannot vote until all her indebtedness is settled."