Business News of Thursday, 28 March 2013

Source: GNA

World Bank to support gov't with $1,200m

The World Bank is expected to provide 1,200 million dollars to support various sectors of Ghana’s economy for the next four years, Dr. Dante Mossi, Senior Operation Officer of World Bank has said.

He said the energy and road sectors would receive a boost with 350 million dollars to help improve services and enhance investments.

The energy sector would contract 200 million dollars and the road sector would receive 150 million dollars, Dr. Mossi made these known at a “World Bank Group’s Joint Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) for Ghana” in Accra on Wednesday.

The forum was organised for selected Editors of media houses to update them on the contents of the CPS ahead of its review process which starts in early April 2013.

Dr. Mossi said the Ghana Social Opportunities would get a boost with 150 million dollars to help improve targeting based in proxy means tests.

The education sectors would be provided with 75.5 million dollars to develop education in deprived areas while 100 million dollars would be used in secondary education programme.

The bank allocated 50 million dollars to help improve the competitiveness of Ghana’s manufacturing sector; 60 million dollars for the Youth Employment Programme, 40 million dollars for E-transform Ghana and 15 million dollars for the Financial sector Technical Assistance.

Dr. Mossi said 50 million dollars would be used on the Financial Sector Development Policy Operation, 250 million dollars on Macro Stability for Competitiveness, 10 million dollars for Economic Management and the Improvement and Consolidation would be provided with 40 million dollars.

The Natural Resource Environmental Governance would benefit from 10 million dollars and the Forest Investment Programme would receive a grant of 30 million dollars.

Dr. Mossi announced that the bank would assist the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area Sanitation and Water system with 150 million dollars to improve the sanitation and water supply in selected rural communities in the region.

An amount of 50 million dollars would go into the health sector to integrate health systems strengthening. The Statistics for Results Facility Grant would get 10 million dollars from the bank and the IDA would also assist it with 30 million dollars.