The Finance Minister, Mr. Ofori Atta made the disclosure on the floor of Parliament on Thursday March 2, 2017 when he presented the maiden budget of the Nana Akufo Addo led New Patriotic Party administration.

According to him, the ZDF is expected to leverage its seed fund to attract additional funding from Development Partners, private sector institutions, civil society organizations, and other non-governmental organizations to help it meet its developmental agenda.

Meanwhile, government has also announced the establishment of three (3) Development Authorities, namely, Northern Development Authority (NDA), Middle Belt Development Authority (MBA), and Coastal Development Authority (CDA).

The Development Authorities will be the main economic development implementing agencies in the areas they cover.

The Minister noted that the establishment of these authorities form part of the development strategy aimed at radically improving the state of basic infrastructure at the constituency level, especially in rural and deprived communities.

“The Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP) will be our main vehicle for tackling these challenges. The IPEP is designed to direct our capital expenditure towards local, constituency-level specific infrastructure and economic development priorities, with particular emphasis on rural and deprived communities”, the Minister added.

Mr. Ken Ofori Atta said the government will restructure and transform the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) into a more focused Northern Development Authority (NDA) as originally envisaged.

“We will make the NDA a flagship programme which will serve as the vehicle for delivering our economic transformation agenda in the three northern regions”, he added.

The Middle Belt Development Authority (MBA) on the other hand will serve as the main development agency for the middle belt of the country while the Coastal Development Authority (CDA) will serve as the principal development agency for the coastal regions of the country.