Let Decentralisation Be Beneficial — Nana Nketsia
The Omanhene of Essikado Traditional Area, Nana Kobina Nketsia V, has pointed out that decentralisation and governance can only be beneficial if they are practised to enhance the culture and traditions of Ghanaians.
He added that anything short of that was the imposition of foreign concepts on the country.
In a presentation at the 61st New Year School organised by the Institute of Continuing and Distance Education (ICDE) in Accra on the theme, “Strengthening Local Governance for Development,” Nana Nketsia V defined development as the enhancement of a people’s way of life and democracy as the full participation of all members of a community in governance.
In his view, good governance was a misnomer, “either you govern or mis-govern”.
He said the litmus test of governance was whether citizens could participate in their governance with no impediments, restrictions or mechanism to alienate them from the process.
Nana Nketsia V maintained that the 1992 Constitution, which provided the basic reference for local governance and decentralisation in the country, was alienating.
That, he said, was because it prevented those who could not read or write in English, a foreign language, from understanding provisions to appropriate their rights.
He also expressed dissatisfaction with a local governance system that made chiefs powerless and eroded traditional and cultural systems of community, development and governance.
For instance, he expressed shock that chiefs could not impose levies on communities for a common good without resorting to district assemblies when they were the first port of call when things went bad in the same communities.
He also condemned a decentralisation process that transferred a huge chunk of an area’s resources to the central government before disbursements were made with no recourse to the people or their needs.
He, therefore, called for the rethinking of the decentralisation model and the remaking of it based on traditions and culture.
The Director of the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS), Dr Esther Ofei Aboagye, in her presentation that focused on capacity building, also raised the need for tailor-made training at the district level that was responsive to local diversities and peculiarities.
She prescribed a capacity-building model for local governance that had a healthy mix of the provision of basic technical capacity from central government, the participation of local people to choose and pick their needs and requirements and the active participation of civil society organisations.
For Dr Ofei Aboagye, capacity building entailed enhancing the people, institutions and practices of the assemblies to achieve their development goals.
She cautioned, however, that training could not be the panacea for capacity gaps.
Dr Aboagye emphasised that ad hoc approaches to capacity development at the local level and several mandatory and optional training sessions by different groups and people, were all inimical to the decentralisation process.
She urged local authorities to rather properly identify the lack of capacity in particular areas, assess the reasons for that and strategically use training to build capacity.
Dr Aboagye listed chief executive officers, presiding members, assembly members, staff of the district assemblies, service providers and civil society members as all targets of capacity-building initiatives based on identified needs of a local assembly.
Mr Kwame Kainyah, the Research Officer of the National Association of Local Authorities of Ghana (NALAG), making a presentation on behalf of the President of the association, Mr Theophilus Adu Mensah, said decentralisation in the country had offered considerable opportunities for popular participation, governance, democracy and development at the local level, however implementation processes and making the assemblies functional had faced challenges and that needed to be addressed.
Nana Boachie Danquah, a former chairman of the Local Government Service, who chaired the function, emphasised the need for the ILGS to be the focal point in all training initiatives by the government or donors as it were created specifically for that purpose. Share Your Thoughts on this article Name Email Location Comments Graphic Ghana may edit your comments and not all comments will be published