President Bio has made no mistake to appoint the astute and dynamic Deputy Minister of Finance, Dr Patricia Lavaley in helping to devise policies that will boost Sierra Leone’s economic compared to other countries in the sub-region.

Dr. Lavaley works closely with the substantive Minister of Finance and the Financial Secretary in the ministry in directing the aspirations of the national budget to meet the President ambitions for economic growth.

Dr. Lavaley on the second day of the ministry’s bilateral discussions with Ministries, Government Departments and Agencies (MDAs) on the theme ‘Fiscal Consolidation and Job Creation’ outlined the focus of the 2021 national budget.

She said that this year theme implies that MDAs must focus on individual revenue generation, cost cutting and payroll management efforts. She called on the MDAs to use the discussions as an opportunity to discuss and review specific sectoral plans and achievements based on the budgets that they were allocated for 2019 and the first half of 2020.

Dr Lavaley called for strategic plans and specific proposals from the MDAs that give a complete picture of their proposals. This, she said, will enable the Ministry of Finance to work out quickly their requested budgets for 2021 fully costed, in line with ceilings.

She said the next meeting would be in six weeks’ time during which the budget preparation by the MDAs should have been completed for reading of the Budget in parliament by the Minister.

On the guidelines for the bilateral meetings, Dr Lavaley said the emphasis is on transparency andbaccountability, which is the essence of their work at the Ministry of Finance. She encouraged the MDAs to take in their challenges, including doing S-W-A-T analysis.

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