Service Delivery In Ga East Municipality Below Average - Participants At SPEFA Forum

The 2017 first Social Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (SPEFA) Forum for the Ga East Municipal Assembly has been held at Haatso with participants rating the assembly’s service delivery as below average.

The SPEFA forum, an educative public meeting took an innovative twist to get the citizens to experiment with critical tools in engaging duty bearers on issues that affected them. The Community Score Card was used to assess the service delivery indicators, and rating score of 1 to 5 with 1 being poor, 2-not so good, 3-average, 4-good and 5-Excellent and reasons for the score was administered.

Overall, service delivery was below average, ranging from a score of (1.4 to 2.8. District Average). The only service (Ease of obtaining Business Operating Permit) crossed the district average score with 3.2. The lowest score 1.4 was ease of obtaining building permit followed by 1.6 for access to good road and drainage.

In relation to the electoral areas, Abokobi scored excellent for accessibility and quality of water. Haatso and Dome scored good whiles Atomic scored average and good for accessibility and quality respectively. Persons living with Disability also scored average for water related indicators.

However, Agbogba, Taifa, Kwabenya and Musuko scored poor for accessibility and quality of water. Of the four, only Musuko scored average for quality of water.

Of all the 11 indicators, Agbogba scored poor for all except ease of obtaining business permit and education on local governance which had a score of not so good and average respectively.

Again, computing the average scores per electoral area, Dome had 2.7, Haatso had 2.9, Atomic had 3, Agbogba had 1.2, Taifa had 2.1, Kwabenya had 2, Musuko had 2.1 and Abokobi had 1.9. Persons with disability in Abokobi also averaged 3.3.

From the above, it can be deduced that Atomic electoral area is the well served whilst Agbobga is the least served in terms of services.

Majority out of the 94 participants opined that even though they expected the Assembly to provide good services, they had a pivotal role in ensuring that services were actually provided. Thus paying rates, acting as watch dogs to safe guard state property and liaising with assembly members and unit committee members to ensure that development reflects the will of the people.

The Acting Executive Director of African Development Programme (ADP), Mr Charles Othniel Abbey noted that the Community Score Card (CSC), aims at strengthening citizens’ voice by creating a channel for direct feedback about a public services between service providers and service users. He also stressed that the process can also lead to quick and tangible results in terms of service delivery improvements, enhances community empowerment and helps build a trustful relationship between service users and providers.

Mr Abbey hinted “this exercise is one of the best to track development in the future so we intend to conduct same by the end of the year, hopefully the 4^th quarter to see how services have improved overtime”. “We will also share the finding and reasons for the score with the office of the assembly for them to have a clear feedback from the citizens on the services they are providing”

The event was held at Haatso Church of Pentecost and tagged “Making Districts Effectively Work For Citizens-The Community Score Card” It is the first of four events to be held in 2017 with additional two town hall meetings as engagement platforms.

The SPEFA program is also a third component of the Local Government Capacity Support Project (LGCSP) with funding from the World Bank. It is coordinated by the Netherlands Development Organization (SNV) in 46 Metropolitan and Municipal assemblies in Ghana

The indicators used were: Responsiveness of assembly staff to the needs of citizens, Access to information.eg MTDP, AAP, budget. Waste Management-Regularity of Service Provider and Customer Relations of Service Provider, Access to good road and drainage in your locality, Responsiveness of public health workers in the district, Accessibility of Water, Quality of Water, Ease of obtaining Building Permit, Ease of obtaining Business Operating Permit and Assembly Education of community on local governance.

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