Assembly officials schooled

The Eastern Regional Coordinating Director, S A Bawa has urged personnel of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to exhibit a high sense of professionalism and refrain from indulging in acts that tend to dent their image.

They should also draw lessons from revelations at the recently help hearings of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee sittings and do what is expected of them.

Mr Bawa, who was addressing participants of a two-day capacity building workshop on financing, management, auditing, procurement and planning for selected officials from the Municipal and District Assemblies in the Eastern Region at Koforidua noted that there seem to be some lapses, especially in financial management and procurement in some of the Assemblies, hence the need for such workshops.

He said as professionals they have important roles to play and ensure that the Assemblies operate in a sound economic environment, stressing, "you should see yourselves as key personnel in the Assemblies and operate in a professional manner.”

Mr Bawa told them: “for you to operate efficiently and effectively, you must understand the real concept of the MMDAS,” reminding them that financial management auditing, procurement ad planning are the key functions of the MMDAS

The RCC Director warned that any member of the Assemblies who would fall foul of the law would be made to dance to the tune of his own music.

Paul Adjei, National Programme Manager in charge of European Commission Support to Local Government Programme said the District Assemblies constitute the bedrock for good governance and poverty reduction strategies.

He said the establishment of the Assemblies was seen as a strategy to promote decentralisation and ensure the promotion of good governance and social accountability with a view to providing more responsive, equitable and participating development.

Mr Adjei was of the view that the Assemblies constitute the foundation of local democracy by providing training grounds for political engagement and promotion of citizen participation towards accountability in local governance.

These, he said become effective when the capacities of the Assemblies and their sub-districts are strengthened, saying that it is in recognition of this that the Ministry of Local Government considers any effort at building the capacity of its officials through training as very paramount.

Raphael Nyadzi, Eastern Regional Planning Officer took the participants through development planning process, reminding them that every Assembly is supposed to produce short and medium term development plan.

He said planning should be a continuous process, stressing that they should always use analytical tools to arrive at their objectives.

By Peter Abban