South West region

 

Mayors & municipal treasurers schooled on mangement of council funds
Mayors and local council authorities have been called upon to reinforce the collaboration between them and put in place the necessary mechanisms and technics of managing their treasury while regulating the cash flow plan to avoid mismanagement of public funds. The call was made by the Directorate General of treasury resource person, Assongfack Hippolyte who was speaking during a one day seminar on the stakes and technics of managing cash flow of decentralized public localities, Wednesday June 18, 2014 at the Buea council hall.
By Sarah Nkongho Ojong in Buea
With the goals of achieving an evolutionary era where all stakeholders involved in the management of cash flow and public funds speak the same language and share the same knowledge in fund management processes, reinforcing the capacities of those directly responsible for managing public funds especially mayors, municipal treasurers and local council authorities, the seminar was deemed to be of utmost importance to the afore-mentioned professionals so that they get abreast of the new techniques of modernizing the management of public funds with some modern techniques like the mastery of treasury and liquidity.
    Such innovation was realized following the fact that in the past, much emphasis and interest was laid on the traditional mechanisms of fund management based on the budgetary aspect, reason why the treasury as a whole is now more concerned not only with budgetary aspects but also on the cash flow and circulation within the regional and local councils and their treasuries.
    The seminar saw the attendance of The SW Governor Okalia Bilai, the SW Pay-Master Peter Ayuk Akpoeban, staff of treasury stations across the region, mayors and assistant mayors of councils of the south west region alongside their municipal treasurers among others.
    Speaking to the press, Assongfack Hippoplyte, a resource person at the training highlighted the importance of the workshop to the mayors and municipal treasurers. He said it would not only strengthen the working relationship between council executives and municipal treasurers but would also help them to effectively manage funds put at their disposal. 

He added that the shift from the old traditional budgetary system to the new mastery of treasury and liquidity management which is at the centre of financial and economic functions of the councils with procedures in managing the total sum of council revenue and expenditure, will go a long way to avoid lapses which can affect the economic growth of the councils.
    Some of the topics discussed during the program included the organization and management of liquidity in regional and local authorities, project techniques of the cash plan and the banking function of the public treasury. 
It should be noted that the training seminar for executives of regional and local councils was jointly organized by the ministry of finance and the ministry of territorial administration and decentralization. It comes in wake of government’s efforts to devolve more powers to the regional councils and territorial collectives.

REACTION:
It timely and imperative
-Aboko Patrick, Mayor Of Kombo Abedimo
The seminar is timely and imperative. It gives us the opportunity to update our knowledge on how council finances are supposed to be managed. We are going to put what we have learnt into good use. We thank God that municipal treasurers were also concerned; we have been facing a lot of problems differentiating between the competence of the authorizing authority (the mayor) and that of the municipal treasurer especially because the former is a politician while the latter is a technician. We really needed a seminar like this in order to draw a line between the competences of these authorities.