You are welcome to this Press briefing. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) held its 58th meeting on November 25 to 27, 2013 to review the latest economic developments and the monetary policy stance. I present to you the outcome of the deliberations.

The latest projections by the IMF indicate a pickup in the pace of global activity from 2.9 percent in 2013 to 3.6 percent in 2014, driven largely by the advanced economies with the impulse to global growth expected to come mainly from the United States against weaker prospects in emerging market economies.

Taxation is zipping up the development agenda, but the discussion is often focussed on international aspects such as tax havens or the Robin Hood Tax. Both very important, but arguably, even more important is what happens domestically – are developing country tax systems regressive or progressive? Are they raising enough cash to fund state services? Are they efficient and free of corruption? This absolutely magisterial overview of the state of tax systems in Africa comes from Mick Moore (right), who runs the International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD). It was first published by the Africa Research Institute.

Anglophone countries have led the way in reforming tax administration in Africa, considerably more so than their francophone peers. The reasons for this are numerous. Networks of international tax specialists are based mainly in English-speaking countries. Many of the modern systems that promote best practice within tax authorities were developed in anglophone countries, especially Australia. International donors, and particularly the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), have directly and indirectly promoted a lot of reform of national tax authorities. In fact, this has been one of the success stories of British aid.

As the 20th anniversary of the birth of democracy in South Africa, on April 27 2014, approaches, it seems a perfect opportunity to take a step back and get a long-range perspective on the important question: “So, what has Nelson Mandela’s South Africa done with its freedom?”

Goldman Sachs has produced this report in the hope of contributing to- wards a more balanced narrative on South Africa; one, which in the wake of 2012’s tragic events at Marikana, had become somewhat hysterical, short-term and often negative

Accountability and transparency initiatives hav e taken democratisation, governance, aid and development circles by storm since the turn of th e century. Many actors involved with them – as donors, funders, programme managers, implementers and researchers – are now keen to know more about what these initiatives are achieving.

This paper arises from a review of the impact and effectiveness of transparency and accountability initiatives which gathered and analysed existing evidence, discussed how it could be improved, and evaluated how impact and effectiveness could be enhanced. This paper takes the discussion further, by delving into what lies behind the methodological and evaluative debates currently surrounding governance and accountability work. It illustrates how choices about methods are made in the cont ext of impact assessment designs driven by different objectives and different ideological and epistemological underpinnings. We argue that these differences are articulated as methodological debates, obscuring vital issues underlying accountability work, which are about power and politics, not methodological technicalities.

The Ministry of Energy has officially laid before Parliament two Petroleum Agreements for ratification following earlier approval by Cabinet. The Agreements are:

1. Petroleum Agreement among Government of the Republic of Ghana, Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, GNPC Exploration and Production Company Limited and AGM Petroleum Ghana LTD in respect of the South Deepwater Tano Contract Area (and shall be called AGM Contract for the purpose of this Analysis).

2. Petroleum Agreement among Government of the Republic of Ghana, Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, Cola Natural Resources and Medea in respect of East Cape Three Points Contract Area (and shall be called Cola Contract for the purpose of this analysis).

This Advisory Notes is provided to members of Parliament to enrich debate during the consideration of the Agreements. The Notes are based on analysis by the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) of the Negotiated Agreements and the memoranda accompanying them. These Notes do not cover most of the subjects in the two Agreements as most of them have common provisions. The focus of the analysis therefore covers subjects that show material differences between the Agreements for the purpose of enriching the debate in parliament.

Of late Ghanaians have become obsessed with throwing electoral ‘jargons’ around arising from the recent Election Petition in the Supreme Court of Ghana and most people have overnight turned themselves into Electoral Specialists in view of the enormous interest generated during the petition hearing. However, there are still lack of clarity and understanding in some of the widely used electoral terminologies. The Centre for African Democratic Affairs (CADA) a ‘Think Tank’ of Election Experts, has taken upon itself the challenge to critically examine some of the terms that created confusion in the minds of people during the court proceedings. One of such terminologies is over voting whose definition is still ambiguous even after the ruling of the Supreme Court. CADA therefore discusses the term Over Voting in the first of its series.

The Minority Leader in Parliament, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, has stated that strengthening Parliament’s financial oversight responsibilities is critical to combating corruption.

He noted that “the evil enterprise of corruption which has become cancerous in Ghana”, explaining that Parliament has no option than to demonstrate extreme concern about the problems and threats that corruption poses to the stability and security of the country.

He said corruption undermines state institutions and the values of democracy, as well as cultural and traditional values and the justice system. According to him these work against sustainable development and the rule of law.

Before we can proceed to identify the oversight responsibility of Parliament in a democracy, it is imperative to be clear about what our own understanding of ‘democracy’ is. As a concept, democracy is innate and almost universally accepted as both ideal and a goal. It is foundationed on shared values of humanity in spite of cultural, social, political and economic differences which may exist between and among people. The pivotal object of democracy is to protect and promote the fundamental rights of the individual to achieve social justice, facilitate social and economic development of the communities, strengthen the cohesion of society and engender a congenial environment for sustainable peace, domestically and internationally.

The Minority Leader in Parliament, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, yesterday stated that strengthening parliament’s financial oversight responsibilities is critical to combating “the evil enterprise of corruption which has become cancerous in Ghana.” He further noted that corruption hurts the poor disproportionately, by diverting scarce funds intended for development, undermining government’s ability to provide such basic services as potable water, schools, shelter, clinics, toilet facilities, farming inputs to the populace and thus aggravating inequality and injustice and thereby discouraging foreign aid and investment.

The Minority Leader made the observation when he delivered the 2013 Liberty Lecture at the Auditorium of the British Council on the theme: “The Deficit in Parliamentary Oversight in the Fight against Corruption.”