Composite Budget Will Give Meaning To Decentralisation - Afriyie Ankrah

A Deputy Minister for Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD), Mr Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, has said the composite budget will give meaning to the concept of decentralisation, which is necessary for accelerated development.

Opening a oneday orientation workshop on the implementation of the composite budget for 87 metropolitan, municipal, and district chief executives (MMDCEs) drawn from the northern zone of the country in Kumasi, he noted that composite budgeting had special emphasis on fiscal decentralisation.

The northern zone comprises the Ashanti, Brong-Ahafo, Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions. It was organised by the Local Government Service (LGS).

Composite budget is an integration of projected revenue and expenditure of the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs), including decentralised departments, with the view to minimising duplication and ensuring cost effectiveness and efficiency in the economy to achieve set targets and goals.

Mr Afriyie-Ankrah reminded participants that the occasion was historic because it was the greatest innovation in the financial and budgeting arrangement in the country since independence and stressed that it was in line with the government’s commitment to deepen decentralisation.

He emphasised that the passage of the Local Government (Department of District Assemblies) Amendment Instrument, 2009 (LI1961), was a giant step towards paving the way for the operationalisation and implementation of composite budgeting

He stressed that it would be prudent for district chief executives (DCEs) who were the operatives in the districts to be familiar with the concept and be abreast of its implementation for 2012.

Topics treated included administrative decentralisation, operationalising the composite budget, accounting records and reporting, auditing at the local level, strengthening auditing composite budgeting and alignment of district development plans to national development

According to Mr Edward Oppong-Aboagye of the Policy, Planning and Evaluation Unit of the LGS, who was also a resource person, the programme would cover those in the mid-zone, comprising the Central and Western regions, at Apam in the Central Region on Wednesday, and that for the southern zone, comprising the Eastern, Volta and Greater Accra regions, would be in Accra on Friday.