Finance dept signs graduate programme deal

A GRADUATE programme run over the last five years by the Finance Department has seen 120 public servants acquire degrees in public accounting and finance management through the Australian government, an official says.
Finance secretary Ken Ngangan said many of these people were working in provinces and districts with the qualifications they had acquired.
He said 12 staff, who worked for more than five years, had been sent to Canberra for a 12-month work attachment. Ngangan said the training was essential to creating a cadre of professional public finance officers to support the government’s service delivery programmes.
“The idea is to provide better financial accountability framework to manage public finance, all these initiatives complement our training programme,” he said.
Ngangan made the remarks during the signing of a memorandum of understanding with his Australian counterpart Rosemary Huxtable to continue the graduate programme. Under the arrangement, selected officers from the two countries would have short-term attachments with their counterpart departments.
Ngangan said the training and mentoring arrangement between the countries had been on-going.
He said the signing of the MoU was only a formality.
He said the programme would eventually be expanded to other government departments and agencies in other provinces.