3.0  Institutional arrangement for debt management in Sierra Leone  Public debt management in Sierra Leone is governed mainly by the 1991 Constitution and the Loan Amendments Act of 1992 which vest the responsibility for contracting loans in the Ministry of Finance (MoF). However, the Ministry and Bank of Sierra Leone (BoSL) work closely in the execution of the debt management function, namely, loan negotiations, renegotiations, disbursement, amortizations and recording. While the MoF undertakes the policy function in terms of formulation of debt policies, strategies and implementation consistent with the macroeconomic and fiscal framework of the country, the BoSL maintains the database, prepares  2  BIS Review 79/2006  the foreign exchange cash flow budget, including debt service obligations. This framework has contributed significantly to improving debt management in the country. We will strive to improve on it. Indeed, the framework enhances coordination of the debt management function by the appropriate authorities. Ladies and Gentlemen, Like most developing countries, Sierra Leone has been facing a number of problems, particularly those relating to maintenance of quality debt data. These include inadequate resourcing of statistics generating units; low priority attached to data collection; and inefficient institutional arrangements for data collection, processing and dissemination. Others include gaps in data recording; and gaps in debt recording systems. I am glad to inform you that the present administration has moved consistently and decisively to up-scale general economic and financial data quality by strengthening data information flows both in BoSL and MoF and at the Central Office of Statistics.

The three consortium members have completed many successful twinning projects in the financial sector and have gained a sound project management capacity. We have strongly committed ourselves to this project for various reasons. We are encouraged by the progress achieved by the financial supervision authorities in Montenegro in bringing financial sector regulation closer to the EU requirements. Also, there are many signs of already built cooperation with the Montenegrin authorities that need further strengthening. Bulgaria, the Netherlands and Montenegro are in the same IMF constituency  BIS Review 168/2009  1  which has created good mutual knowledge of their economies and fostered long-term cooperation on financial issues. We consider our experience relevant to Montenegro not only because of the scale of the economy, but also because of the similarities of the supervisory structures. In the accession process we have learnt several major lessons. Bulgaria did not ask for any transitional periods or derogations concerning the banking sector acquis communautaire. Furthermore, all EU directives in this sector were transposed in time and most of them long before the deadlines. This approach has turned to be a success since the early adoption of the EU rules in financial supervision contributed to the smooth functioning of the financial market and fostered the stability of the financial system. One of the main keys to the smooth transition in the accession process is the cooperation between the institutions involved in financial regulation and supervision.