Ghana needs between US$350 and US$430 million annually to fund its huge infrastructure gap, which constitutes a major draw up on its economic growth. It is expected that this issue will take centre stage at this year's Consultative Group Meeting between government and its development partners which begins today. The two-day meeting will discuss the 2006 Results and Resources Analysis, Planned 2007/2009 results and resources Analysis, Investing in Ghana's accelerated Growth and Poverty Reduction and Delivering on Pillar II of GPRS II Human Resource Development. A lead economist of the World Bank, Zeljko Bogetic told financial journalists in Accra that major infrastructure gaps need to be addressed, particularly in energy, water, information and communications technology (ICT), and some areas of transport. "Filling those gaps will require greater participation by the private sector in providing infrastructure services." The question on the lips of economists is how will the nation source for the required funding? With Ghana already having received around 95% of the programmed donor grants for this year, there is limited additional upside from this source. That aside, the lead economist maintained that, government needs to sustain macroeconomic stability by improving public sector efficiency and maintaining prudent fiscal management. This to a large extent confirms concerns raised by some economic analysts on the possibility of fiscal slippage. Analysts have warned that although there has been little obvious sign of fiscal stress to date, developments nonetheless need to be closely watched. "With a large public sector wage bill as a percentage of GDP, some fiscal deterioration might have been expected even in the absence of fuel-related pressures." The threats to the authorities' fiscal position are three-fold: First, until the energy sector including utilities moves to full cost recovery, a negative budgetary impact is likely to result. Second, any generalised increase in prices - already observed to be underway will give rise to greater public sector wage demands. Additionally, the current round of public sector wage settlements has yet to be concluded, but with the energy crisis in full swing, there is a clear risk that wage demands will exceed inflation target," they opined. In spite of this, the analysts maintained that the speed of Ghana's economic transformation has in recent years set it apart from other economies in the region. Growth of 6.2% last year was the highest since the early 1990s and Ghana is on track to achieving its goal of halving poverty well ahead of the Millennium Development Goal target date of 2015. The World Bank recently named Ghana as one of the three strongest policy performers among low-income African countries. Overall, Ghana's robust growth over the past 15 years has reduced poverty remarkably. Poverty rate fell from about 51.7% in 1991-92 to 39.5% in 1998-99, and then to 28.5% in 2005-06. Culled from B&FT