New Year School advocates reforms in decentralization process

Speakers at the 59th Annual New Year School underway at University of Ghana, Legon, on Saturday advocated reforms in Ghana's decentralization process to conform to modern local governance practices.

The proposal bordered on methods of revenue generation, power play between local and central government and their functions and capacity development for staff of the district assemblies.

At a symposium titled "Re-sourcing District Assemblies for Effective Local Governance," the speakers also stressed the need for adequate re-sourcing of the assemblies, and interventions to improve governance at the local level.

They said the district assemblies were the highest political and administrative authority in the district responsible for the overall development, policy formulation and legislation.

Professor Nana Yaw Boachie-Danquah, Chairman of the Ghana Local Government Council, noted that political power was a resource for development at the local level.

He said Ghana should review the decentralization policy and its regime of laws after almost 20 years of practice of the District Assembly concept, to define roles at the central and local government levels.

Prof. Nana Boachie-Danquah said power relations were still skewed in favour of central level institutions resulting in too many central directives and instructions to the district assemblies arising out of the unequalled and unaligned power relations.

He said there was still a lingering amount of central government control and asked "how come there is a feeling that if you redefine role-casting, people will no longer be important?"

Prof. Nana Boachie-Danquah called for the tackling of unequal power relationship, re-sourcing of the district assemblies with the necessary power to ensure effective local governance.

He said organisational re-sourcing involves different forms of accepted roles of power, human resource development, financing, equipment and conducive democratic structures.

Prof. Nana Boachie-Danquah also indicated that re-sourcing entails the creation of an enabling environment for an organisation to exercise control over the use of resources.

He complained about the low sitting allowances for assembly members and suggested that the number of members could be reduced to enhance their salaries adding "They could be put on salaries as Members of Parliament, and provided with incentives other than cash."

Prof. Nana Boachie-Danquah said the national budget must be re-configured to actualize ideas of fiscal decentralization and composite budget.

He also suggested the establishment of a Municipal Finance Authority to give the district assemblies the opportunity to raise funds from the capital market for productive investments.

Mr Kwamena Ahwoi, a former Minister of Local Government, said the development of Municipal Finance and Management Initiative and the Local Government Credit Market initiated by government sounded very exciting and had the potential for enhancing fiscal decentralization.

He said "It would be useful if whatever is being planned under the two new initiatives is put into the public domain so that they can have the benefit of wider public discussion."

Mr Ahwoi said the organization of training and orientation

courses for district level political officials, especially District Chief Executives (DCEs) and assembly members should be taken seriously.

He said the present three-day orientation courses for assembly members on their elections and appointment was grossly inadequate, and the Annual Conferences of DCEs had become more of political jamborees than serious training sessions.

Mr Ahwoi said "DCEs, because they have political, administrative, managerial and human relations responsibilities, ought to be given specialized training in administration, management and human resource management before they assume duty."

Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Maxwell Kofi Jumah announced that government was reviewing the draft decentralization policy submitted by the Decentralisation Secretariat at the Ministry.

He said Parliament would soon receive a bill that would be intended to strengthen the Local Government Act in order to provide more effective local governance.

Prof Atsu Ayee, Dean of the Faculty of Social Studies, of the University, noted that the creation of new districts required more resources, and suggested that some assembly members should be retained when their mandate came to an end.

The Annual New Year School is a one-week extra-mural program organized annually by the Institute of Adult Education of the University of Ghana and the theme for this year's event is "Tertiary Education and National Development".

Participants to the School, which spans January 3, 2008 to January 10, 2008, are taking part in symposia, panel discussion and listening to lectures on topics like: "Promoting Health for All: The Challenges," and "Increasing the Utilization of Information, Communication and Technology in Tertiary Education."

Source: GNA