EVOLVE MEASURES TO SANCTION NON-PERFORMING MMDCES (PAGE 13, JUNE 22, 2010)

THE Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD) has been urged to come out with measures to sanction all non-performing Municipal and District Chief Executives (MDCEs) and their staff who failed to qualify for the District Development Facility (DDF).
The Deputy Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, Mr Eric Opoku, who made the call said if sanctions were put in place by the ministry it would make non-performing appointees and their staff sit up and work effectively to enable their areas of jurisdiction to benefit from the fund, apart from the District Assemblies Common Fund (DAFC) to ensure further development.
Mr Opoku was addressing the opening ceremony of a three-day training workshop for MDCEs at Fiapre in the Sunyani West District of the Brong Ahafo Region.
The DDF is a multi-donor performance-based funding facility for the assemblies and is accessed based on performance of the assembly after every two years.
Mr Opoku noted that MDCEs and their staff who failed to qualify for the facility are not only denying their people the benefits of further development but also served as a disservice to the government since it was another avenue to get more resources for development.
“ Assemblies that qualify for the facility stand to benefit from an amount almost equal to the annual common fund allocation so why should an appointee or staff of the assembly be made to go scot free for failure to qualify for the DDF I think if punitive measures are put in place, all assemblies would meet the criteria for qualification in order to free other government resources for further development of their district,” he stated.
He said all MDCEs in the region should ensure that their assemblies qualified for the 2010 assessment to justify that they were capable of managing the assemblies as part of the Better Ghana agenda team.
The workshop was to build the management and leadership skills of the participants for better organisational efficiency.
Mr Opoku stated further that the Regional Co-ordinating Council (RCC) was also determined to ensure effective monitoring of the activities of the assemblies to ensure that all the 22 Municipal and District Assemblies (MDAs) in the region qualified.
The deputy regional minister noted that during the recent assessment, some districts failed to qualify for the DDF, simply because of their failure to produce basic documents such as mid-year and annual reports, minutes of District Co-ordinating and Planning Unit, General Assembly, Entity Tender Committee and Municipal/District Security Committee meeting, among others.
“The quantum of resources a district misses by failing to produce these simple but essential documents is too high to be countenanced repeatedly. The remedy therefore is to build your capacities in these areas and, as managers and leaders, to ensure that responsible persons perform their duties with diligence,” he stated.
Mr Opoku urged all MDCEs to actively and personally get involved in the performance of the fundamental and basic functions of the assemblies to ensure that their assemblies qualify to access the DDF.
He also called on the assemblies to capture the issue of HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis (TB) in their development plans and also provide adequate resources for them.