CDD-Ghana advocates improvement in resource allocation to assemblies

The Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), is advocating improvement in national and sector resource allocation to local government system.

Mr. Mohammed Awal, Team Lead for CDD-Ghana’s Social Accountability Project who made the call said, inadequate resource allocation contributed to the inability of assemblies to implement more than 30 per cent of medium-term development plans.

He said resources were also not allocated on the principle of needs and districts lagging behind in the execution of their development plans, did not receive sufficient resources.

He was addressing a two-day capacity building and sensitisation workshop for selected civil society organisations and the media on decentralisation reforms and local government accountability in Kumasi.

The training, which was funded by STAR-Ghana is aimed at building the capacities of participants to undertake evidence-based advocacy to influence and demand for accountability especially at the sub-national level.

Presenting CDD-Ghana’s policy recommendation towards improving local government accountability and service delivery, Mr Awal said control over resources continued to sit primarily at the central level and implored government to reform inter-governmental fiscal transfer rules, stressing the need to increase the District Assemblies Common Fund to a minimum of 10 per cent of national revenue.

He said Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) with central level responsibility for service delivery should prioritise resource allocation to districts that ranked poor in national assessment in service delivery performance focus on matching resource allocation with responsibility assignment.

“The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development and the Office of Head of Local Government Service must invest in and work to enhance the technical capacity of MMDAs to mobilise, generate and allocate resources efficiently.

This would have to be done by addressing non-functioning of sub-district structures and expanding the range of local tax sources for MMDAs” he stated.