Gazette Staff CAIRO, April 18, 2018 – Finance Minister Amr el-Garhy said on Wednesday that financial transparency had a key role to play in improving public spending and was a tool for engaging the public and establishing social accountability to achieve better living conditions. The finance minister was speaking at a roundtable discussion organised by the World Bank and the International Budget Partnership (IBP) under the title of "Financial Transparency in the Middle East and North Africa", on the sidelines of the Spring Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund which are now being held in Washington. El-Garhy said that transparency and disclosure of additional information about budgets, were conducive to interacting with citizens to acquire the know-how of using public funds in a more efficient way. Egypt, the minister added, was getting close to completing four consecutive years of its roadmap to improve financial transparency and engage ordinary citizens. Over the past three years, several reforms have been introduced and challenges faced, including the Egyptian state's adoption of a number of key systems for enhancing financial transparency. "The Finance Ministry is working on the timely publishing of accurate reports that present, in a more comprehensive way, details of the state budget,"el-Garhy said. He added that the Finance Ministry had set up an interactive website which allows citizens to send their comments and get access to financial reports and data analyses. The minister confirmed that the government had allocated LE12 million to the social protection programme Takaful and Karama in Assiut governorate, in Upper Egypt, and another LE12 million to the Social Fund for Development programme.
