News:
May 30, 2018
Minority members on the committee of Local Government and Rural Development, has urged government to withdraw its restrictive directives to the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies with regards to the use of their approved funds.
According to the Minority, Nine Hundred and Five million, Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine Thousand, Nine Hundred and Eighty-Two (GHc 905, 999, 982.00) Ghana cedis was given to 254 MMDAs in 2018, for their planned local government projects and programmes as approved for them in the formula.
Deputy ranking on Local Government and Rural Development, Benjamin Kpodo at a press conference noted that they have picked up information that a directive has gone out to the MMDAs to transfer funds to be applied in the following projects.
School feeding, 40 percent, GHc 362, 399,992.80; National builders corps, twenty percent (20) GHc 181, 199,996.40; planting for food and jobs twenty percent (20) GHc 181,199,996.80; and the balance for the Assemblies own projects twenty percent (20) GHc 181, 199, 996.40.
He further called on government to explore and find other means of funding its flagship programmes.
And urged government to desist from any further acts that seek to deprive the Assemblies of their lawful funds due them for implementation of their local development agenda, such as introducing legislations that seek to appropriate parts of the monies due to the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF).
The Minority urged government to take steps to regularly release DACF as stipulated in the constitution and avoid holding such funds long in arrears.
And noted that decentralization can be deepened when units are strengthened financially to function satisfactorily.
By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com