From 14 to 16 August, CPA UK hosted two Finance Officers from the Parliament of Ghana for a study visit to the UK Parliament. The purpose of their visit was to learn best practices from their counterparts at the Corporate Finance & Performance Team in the House of Commons on a variety of issues, such as budgeting, reconciliation, financial report and payroll management.

The Finance Officers met with a wide range of stakeholders within the Corporate Finance & Performance Team, which gave them a good overview of the structure of the Team and their internal processes. The Finance Officers were impressed with the management of invoices, as this is an issue that the Parliament of Ghana is looking to improve.

They were also interested in learning about how the House of Commons deals with procurement. They informed their counterparts that while there are similar procurement rules in place in Ghana, procurement is dealt with differently in practice.

The Finance Officers also met with the Committee Clerk of the Finance Committee to discuss financial reporting. Finally, they met with the Hardware Asset Management Team to better understand the treatment and disposal of obsolete equipment by the House of Commons.

At the end of the programme both Officers expressed their satisfaction with the programme. They indicated that the programme allowed them to learn best practices and gave them new ideas on how to improve the practice and procedure of their Finance Department. Upon their return to Ghana, the they will draft a report with their findings and lessons learnt, which will be shared with their colleagues.

CPA UK looks forward to continuing its close relationship with the Parliament of Ghana.

CPA UK’s next engagement with the Ghanaian Parliament will be a delegation visit from the Deputy Speaker and Members of the Privileges Committee to Westminster in October.