The Head of Delegation of the European Union, Ambassador Claude Maerten has indicated that the “present EU budget support for Ghana ends in 2014”, subject to review.  This is to be continued or discontinued depending on the outcome of the review.  Ambassador Maerten made the exposѐ on Tarzan’s Take on JoyNews, MultiTV.

Responding to what the European Union (EU) seeks in its relationship with Ghana and Africa for that matter, Ambassador Maerten said EU’s major aim is to ensure prosperity, peace and stability in the lives of its development partners.  To achieve this, every form of assistance offered is based on the home grown development agenda of the individual country.

In the case of Ghana, and other Africa nations which according to the Ambassador is unique in that, under the leadership of Ghana’s Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP) for instance, 15 development partners and the government of Ghana have agreed on a “common platform to implement an external assistance to Ghana based on what division of the country to ensure its sustainable development  target of vision 2020 and what should be the common response strategy of the development partner”.

To effect this, he said by full coordination and clearance of member states, they meet regularly to deliberate on the different sectors of the economy and rationalize their actions so that there is no duplication of aid.  He cited the fiver year EU budget support to Ghana as an example which is about half the EU external assistance estimated at five hundred million Euros and about one other million Euro every year.

He also pointed to another programme started last year to “promote maternal health” in a bid to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5.  He indicated a total amount of 20 million Euros have already been disbursed in respect of the intervention.  He said the EU among its aid intervention has a programme geared towards decentralization policy and also involved in World Networks such as the Western and Eastern corridor projects in Africa.

Touching on provision of basic needs to Ghana, Ambassador Maerten noted, the European Union has just finalized its next phase of financial assistance from 2014 to 2020 covering three broad areas. These include governance, accountability and reinforcing independent constitutional bodies to have a positive investment to promote agriculture in the north of the country such as irrigation schemes etc and job creation.

He said from 1975 till date, the European assistance to Ghana is worth 1.2billion Euros (3bn Ghana Cedis) and the first fifteen years of its financial support has been “effectively chanelled into road infrastructure projects” which he put at 2000 kilometers of feeder roads among which is the Kumasi-Techiman road.

Ambassador Claude Maerten quantifies the current EU assistance to Ghana at 3% of the country’s total revenue. Though he admits this assistance is “very minimal”,  he revealed that there is a programme with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to look into public finance management by which the EU will “follow the 2014 budget and the reserve of the 2013 budget” and determine the nature and level of assistance to offer. 

Assessing the impact of donor support over the period, Ambassador Claude noted, it will be difficult to measure the impact; however, the EU, he said, “is ready to disburse some more (money) based on the home grown development agenda of Ghana”.

Commenting on complaints about the delay in receiving donor support lately, Amb. Maerten admitted “it was difficult to disburse early because they did not have all the available funds, so we were obliged to wait’’.

As to whether the EU will move from aid to engaging in trade with Ghana any time soon, the Head of the EU Delegation assured that, the EU is already in transition with its assistance to Ghana. He noted the “15 partners in their coordinated approach have agreed to be in transition from aid to less aid”.

He observed that as far as trade between the two countries is concerned, the EU is Ghana’s major trade partner since 2007 with about 25% of investments.