By Simon Ebegbulem
BENIN CITY — THE Country Director of the World Bank, Onno Ruhl, yesterday, said that Edo State has qualified for the second phase of its developmental partnership with the bank due to what he described as the developmental strides and prudent management of the finances of the state by Governor Adams Oshiomhole.

Ruhl, who disclosed this when he witnessed the presentation of the report on Public Expenditure Management Financial Accountability Report, PEMFAR, to the state government and the inauguration of the state Public Financial Management Reform Action 2010, which will see to the implementation of the blueprint on the management of the state’s finances and economic implementation, said the state was the second after Lagos State to have graduated to the next level of support from the bank.

According to him, “what is good in coming to Edo State is that every time we come, something is happening. There is progress and I don’t like to measure progress in terms of report, so what I particularly liked is that the very first time I came to Edo State,  which was in April 2009, between here and the airport, I saw only water the second time I came, your commissioner for Environment took me to some works around”.

“This time, there was still water but next to the water, a solution to the problem was being built and that is the kind of result that are more important than reports. This is an example of a government delivering to its people and that is why we are very keen to being Edo state partner, we like to work with governments whether they are at the national level or state level. We believe in delivering services to the people because that is the only way we as development partners can be relevant” he stated.

Ruhl added further that the report would bring the state further from where it is already in terms of relationship with the state, asserting that “it is why I decided to come back to publicly confirm our commitment to continue supporting you in your endeavour both with investment support through the state expenditure for opportunity and result programme for which there has been work going on.

Responding, Oshiomhole said his administration was conscious of the finances of the state and “what we met on ground in Edo state, a financial management regime that needed to be reformed of course this is something we anticipated which is why in our campaign slogan, we said we were coming to Edo state on a rescue mission and that the language is change.

So why we had the political will to change the system we also needed to have a template that incorporates global best practices in public finance management”.He said it was useful for the state to have partnered with the Bank to come out with recommendations “and these recommendations will impart positively on the operations of all the ministries, departments and agencies.

They will also cover the entire processes involved in approval releases, management accounting of incomes and expenditure”.