The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business 
Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The Government is undertaking reforms to its financial management system, a Cabinet Minister said yesterday, noting that it was seeking to improve its ability to allocate and track public funds.

During a presentation in the House of Assembly, Khaalis Rolle, minister of state for investments, said: “The Government seeks to enhance its capacity to produce and provide better statistics for policymaking, and improve the ability to track public funds.

“The final component of this program deals with designing a project evaluation tool (PET), so that the Office of the Prime Minister can track the performance of priority projects at the touch of an Ipad.”

Mr Rolle also highlighted the National Development Plan project launched this week. He added that of the risks associated with the project, the biggest one was it would end up as “another report on a shelf”.

In order to mitigate this, Mr Rolle said: “We will ensure that planning is institutionalised within the public sector so that it is a routine function, and one which is dependable and relies on reliable data.

“Secondly we will seek to ensure that all stakeholders, regardless of political persuasion, are deeply involved in the planning process, understand the proposed outcomes and agree to the plan and execution framework.”

Mr Rolle said the Bahamas was now at a crossroads, and what it does over the next few months “will define us for the next 40 years”.

“We are in a very peculiar set of circumstances as a people, unusually high unemployment resulting from a prolonged global recession and a weak recovery in our closet markets, increasing competition in our traditional economic sectors and an aging public infrastructure needing an infusion of new ideas and new approaches to our institutional framework,” said Mr Rolle. Mr Rolle said it was expected that the National Development Plan will modernise the country’s development path beyond the existing economic model.