The Liberian government in partnership with the World Bank and other international partners Monday launched the Integrated Public Financial Management Reform Project (IPFMRP) to strengthen fiscal discipline and enhance transparency and accountability in Liberia.

The landmark 28.55 million U.S dollars project will also enhance revenue mobilization and administration as well as provide support to the Public Financial Reform Agenda, according to the finance ministry officials.

Acting Finance Minister Sebastian Muah who launched the project in the capital Monrovia said the project will further deepen reforms that will advance accountability, transparency and reduce corruption in public institutions.

He said the project will enable Liberia's public financial management systems to graduate from transactional leadership in PFM to the kind of transformational leadership that will focus on driving the economy coherently to accelerate the aspirations and goals set out in the agenda for transformation.

Muah said public financial management is central to the country' s effort for sustainable economic growth and development through the efficient utilization of public resources.

The acting finance minister told his audience that the PFM strategy, crafted with the assistance of the World Bank and the IMF is anchored in the country's Agenda for Transformation and seeks to widen and strengthen PFM reforms that were initiated in 2006.

Speaking at the launching ceremony, Inguna Dobraja, World Bank Country Manager for Liberia project, said the new PFM project will pursue concrete improvements in selected systems, procedures, and resources, in a manner that would enable Liberia to gradually develop its own institutional, organizational, and human resource capacities in the next three to four years consistent with the Bank's broader agenda in improving governance.

The PFM project was ratified by the 53rd Liberian Legislature in June 2012. It was initiated to work towards improving budget coverage, fiscal policy management, financial control and oversight of government's finances.

The World Bank is lending 5 million dollars out of the overall 28.55 million dollars project cost which will be jointly financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) in the equivalent amount of 15.10 million dollars; the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) - 3.85 million dollars; and the African Development Bank (AfDB) - 4.6 million dollars.

Sida and USAID financing will be channeled through a World Bank- administered Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF), and the African Development Bank will coordinate its disbursements with the other development partners.

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