The Ghanaian media should promote public accountability in helping to fulfill its constitutional role of promoting public accountability as in Article 162 (5) of the 1992 constitution.

A two-day training workshop was organized by the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) and sponsored by the World Bank (Ghana office) dubbed “ Strengthening public accountability through improved media understanding of the budgetary process,”. This is considered necessary for the media to demand or hold public officials in the management of the economy accountable.

The budget touches on every aspects of the public life and as such a good grasp of the budgetary process by the media in general would improve its comprehension, tracking and analysis of the budget and developmental issues.

Speaking on a topic  ‘the role of parliament in the budgetary process’, the Vice Chairman of the Finance Committee of Parliament, Kwadwo Agyei-Addo lamented that for Ghana to move faster we should be able to generate revenue internally rather than depending on our colonial masters to partly finance our budget.

To this end he appealed to Ghanaians to endeavour to honour their tax obligations so that we can also develop the country. Mr. Agyei-Addo called for the promulgation of an Act of Parliament. The macro economic objectives may include improved economic growth rate, price stability, employment and balance of payment.

To achieve stated macro economic objectives, complementary strategies are adopted and they are the Monetary and Fiscal policy. The fiscal policy thus concern with the use of variations in taxation and government expenditure patterns and levels, as a strategy to achieve stated macro economic objectives.

The function in regard to the national economic management is assigned to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning while the monetary policy component is assigned to the Bank of Ghana.

The monetary policy thus indicates changes in money supply to achieve stated macro economic objectives.

Government, through the Bank of Ghana thus seeks to regulate inflation, economic growth and employment through the control of the money supply, cost and availability of credit.

A very important component is the stability of the financial and investment environment in banking.

The linkage between the monetary and the fiscal policy is very vital, meaning a firm control of the money supply to restrain the level of prices would be useless if at the same time governments budget did not control its own expenditure or make bid reductions in taxation or in revenue generation.

Touching on the issue of the media reporting on the budget in enabling the targeted audience to understand certain aspects of the economy, a lecturer of the School of Communication Studies, Legon, Mr. Gilbert Tietaah said, a good reportage on an issue, especially when it comes to the budget, should be focused on a single dominant theme for the story.