Dereliction Of Duty Or Sheer Ignorance Or Complete Disregard For Statutory Requirements?

In a letter dated 30^th November, 2015, the Head of Service of the Local Government Service communicated to all Regional Ministers, the appointment of the long awaited fifty-two (52) District Coordinating Directors (DCDs). I congratulate all who made it to this list. Let me be clear here because my attention has been severally drawn to some falsehood being peddled around by certain individuals in the service. Though not bothered, I think it is proper to state that I HAVE NO ISSUE WITH ANY SINGLE PERSON ON THAT LIST OR WHO BECOMES A DISTRICT COORDINATING DIRECTOR (DCDS) OR NOT IN THE SERVICE.

What I surely have problems with is the fairness, prudence and even sometimes the legalities of the processes being adopted in the name of reforms to appoint DCDs. As I have said before, I will surely examine this issue later in detail for us all to see if we are fair to ourselves. Today, I want to talk about something I warned the current Head of Service about as far back in 2013 but as usual of our “Bigmen”, it was completely ignored because it was coming from some “small boy” in Kumbungu District Assembly.

In my letter of 19^th August, 2013 addressed to Dr. Callistus Mahama as Head of Local Government Service, I warned that we have to hasten slowly by finding all the components of the ‘Jigsaw puzzle’ before we proceed to solve it or else we risk running into problems. I mentioned even legal issues we are likely to encounter if we proceeded in the direction we were heading. Today, I have no doubt we are at that conundrum which I talked about in 2013. Why do I say so? I have been observing keenly on the sidelines since the release of these fifty-two (52) DCDs and it is interesting what I have heard so far.

Section 20(1) of the Local Government Service Act of 2003, Act 656 states “There shall be a District Co-ordinating Director for each district who shall be the secretary to the Assembly and head of the District Co-ordinating Directorate”. This is a straight forward statement and I don’t intend to explain it further but what this tells me in simple terms is that in Ghana currently we are supposed to have 216 DCDs (whether acting or substantive) since there are 216 MMDAs. This same provision is contained in section 36(1) of the Local Government Act of 1993, Act 462. Again, if you read these sections carefully, ‘District Co-ordinating Director’ is a position in the service and NOT a grade. It CANNOT also be both a grade and a position as Dr. Callistus Mahama answered during our meeting when I asked him a question as to whether DCD is a grade or a position in the service. If it is a grade, then it makes the processes adopted currently in the appointment of DCDs even more problematic.

Before this current appointment of DCDs, the service had written to inform all who have not duly gone through the process to be appointed as DCDs to desist from holding themselves as such and rather use ‘Acting District Coordinating Director’. Acting appointments are normal in the public services of Ghana and writing to those people to consider themselves as Acting, in my considered opinion, is a formalisation of their acting appointments. There are two main categories of acting appointments – Acting Assignments and Formal Acting Appointments, according to the Public Services Commission (PSC). People have acted as District Coordinating Directors for more than ten (10) years and are still acting. In the Northern Region for example, the last person to assume this position of Acting DCD is almost eight months in the post, if I am not mistaken. Section 20 of the Conditions of Service for the Local Government Service has made adequate provisions for acting appointments. It states “Where it becomes imperative to request an officer to perform the functions of a superior officer for a period exceeding three (3) months, an acting appointment shall be conferred on him by the Head of Service”. I think this is what the Head of Service sought to do when he wrote to all who were not appointed as DCDs to use Acting DCD.

Now, section 20 (c) states “no acting appointment shall exceed a period of one year” and yet people have acted for 2, 3, 6 and in some cases 11 or more years. The Human Resource Policy Framework and Manual for the Ghana Public Services under section 4.13.17 says “Under no circumstance shall a worker serve in an acting capacity for more than one (1) year. Heads of organisation shall be held personally liable for failure to comply with this provision”. Reading further to section 20(d) of the conditions of service for Local Government Service, it says “an officer who has performed satisfactorily in an acting capacity for more than one year may be considered for promotion to the grade for which he/she acted”. Circular no. PSC/ADP/01 of 10^th June, 2005 under the subject “GUIDELINES ON ACTING APPOINTMENTS”, section 4.6 even puts it better by saying “Three months to the end of the one year acting period, the Governing Board shall, appraise the performance of the acting officer and take appropriate action for the confirmation or termination of the appointment”. I can state on authority that this has not been done for the many who have acted as DCDs for more than one year and still acting and truth is many of them were not even given the chance to be appraised for their acting appointments to be confirmed or terminated. Hope you are beginning to appreciate my harmless question as the title for this write up.

One might ask what this has got to do with the fifty-two just appointed DCDs. A lot, I say! Among this fifty-two are those who were already acting as DCDs in various districts (from the information I have, they are in the majority) and for them I call their appointments a confirmation of their acting appointments as required by the Public Service Commission’s guidelines. So, naturally they returned back to their districts to continue with their normal routine. The other part of the fifty-two, are those who were not acting as DCDs before their appointment. They naturally have to now be posted to take over from those who are currently acting and therein lies the challenge. Many questions come to mind:

1. What is the status of those who have acted for more than one year since it is clear that no one is supposed to act more than one year?
2. Hasn’t someone reneged on his duty and who is to hold such a person responsible?
3. Is it proper to renege on your duty and after 2 or 3 or 6 or 10 years, you wake up and demote or replace or make people worse off?
4. And after 10 years of performing the duties of a DCD, where are you going to place them after replacing them? Head of Central Administration Department I guess! Ha-ha-ha...

As I write, information from the grapevine is that this second category of appointed DCDs have been posted to the Regional Co-ordinating Councils (RCCs) for further posting to the districts and close to four (4) months after their appointment, they are yet to be posted. I guess the RCCs are having difficulty posting them. And why didn’t Dr. Callistus Mahama post them directly to the districts this time as he has been doing since he took over as Head of Service? Has he now suddenly seen the importance of the RCCs in the posting of DCDs in and out of the regions? So now, there are freshly appointed substantive DCDs and yet others are acting in their stead. Funny!

I wait to see how this issue is resolved but honestly I wish I was one of the Acting DCDs who have acted continuously for over 5 years and now penned for replacement. I have no doubts this will be an interesting case to argue in court. And again, the more this people appointed as DCDs are not being posted to head district coordinating directorates as contained in section 20 of the Local Government Service Act, the more their appointments are becoming problematic. Interesting days ahead!

Well another very interesting thing caught the eye of yours truly but not all that related to this write up and I can’t just end this write up without mentioning it. Perusing through the letter of appointment of the fifty-two DCDs, I realised two things:

1. The letter was signed by a Director (HRPD) for the Secretary. Section 9(2) of the Public Services Commission Act says “The secretary is not a member of the commission”. And where is or was the chairman of the commission? With my small experience in the Public Service and with what I know goes on in Public institutions and the small hullabaloo that greeted these appointments, I can only say hmmm... Your guess is as good as mine!
2. Paragraph 2 of the letter of appointment states “As a District Coordinating Director of the Local Government Service, you will be responsible for the day-to-day administration and management of the Assembly to which you will be assigned, subject to such direction on general policy as may be given by the council”. This in my candid opinion is a complete blunder and is setting the appointed DCDs, especially the new once on a collision course with the law and District Chief Executives (DCEs). This in my considered opinion is in direct contravention of Article 243 (2)(b) of the 1992 Constitution, section 20 (2)(b) of the Local Government Act and certain portions of section 20 of the Local Government Service Act. Article 243 (2)(b) says “The District Chief Executive SHALL be responsible for the day-to-day performance of the executive and administrative functions of the District Assembly”.

I rest my case here but remember I shall surely be back.

Charles A. Akurugu

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