Yakubu: District assemblies lack high calibre of staff

Page 13, Friday June 26, 2009
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah

THE Upper West Regional Co-ordinating Director, Mr David Yakubu, has bemoaned the lack of provision of the right mix of high calibre of staff for district assemblies and the sub-district structures, noting that the situation has hampered development in the rural areas.
He said many district assemblies, especially the newly created ones, did not have adequate human capacity to ensure their development goals.
“The central administration of most district assemblies, especially the newly created ones lack planning and budget officers for the preparation of good plans for the development of the assemblies,” he noted.
Mr Yakubu was presenting a paper on the topic “Enhancing the capacity of newly created district assemblies to ensure the achievement of effective development goals” at a workshop in We.
It was organised by the Parliamentary Press Corps and sponsored by the Office of the Administrator of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF).
Participants included District Chief Executives (DCEs) and Members of Parliament (MPs) from the Upper West Region and members of the Parliamentary Press Corps.
Mr Yakubu said it was sad that apart from the Ghana Education Service, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the Ghana Health Service, most of the other departments in the region either had caretaker officers or at best a “one person” department.
He said in the midst of inadequate staffing, there was a serious challenge of coordination, since most departments of the various assemblies still worked in isolation or under their regional heads instead of the assemblies.
Mr Yakubu said that had further weakened the collaborative efforts needed to enhance the human resource capacity of the assemblies.
He also identified lack of capacity on the part of assembly members to play effective roles and functions as the greatest challenge facing newly created assemblies in particular and all other assemblies in general.
Mr Yakubu said since many assembly members did not know or appreciate their roles and functions, they were unable to discuss issues affecting their constituents and the assemblies.
He, therefore, suggested that provision of human resource for the newly created assemblies should be well planned and systematic, adding that because of the rural nature of the assemblies, incentive packages should be instituted to entice high calibre of staff to accept postings to those areas.
Mr Yakubu called for the institution of continuous training programmes to be designed for all the staff at the district and sub-district levels, as well as for the assembly members to enhance their capacities.
He also suggested provision of additional financial resources outside of the DACF, while provision of some infrastructural development in the new assemblies should be taken up by the central government.
Touching on the theme for the workshop, “Transparency and Accountability: Pillars for Effective Decentralisation”, the Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Joseph Yieleh Chireh, said it behoved all Ghanaians, especially those placed in positions of trust, to live up to their responsibilities.
He stated that transparency and accountability, as a means of propelling effective decentralisation, could only be achieved through informed participation of the people at the community level.
Mr Chireh gave assurance that the government was committed to the tenets of effective decentralisation and local government administration through participation, transparency and accountability as indicated in its manifesto.
He said the recent announcement of the introduction of town hall meetings with community members of the various districts was an added leap to transparency and accountability of governance, especially at the local levels.
Mr Chireh noted that although Ghana had chalked up successes over the years in its decentralisation process, the country could do better if it considered transparency and accountability as the corner pillars of its decentralised local government administration.
For his part, the Administrator of the DACF, Mr Joshua Magnesia Nicol, called on the media to rebuild public trust, expectation and the confidence in the district assemblies as the institutions that had the capacity to provide sustained development.
“The media may have to intensify their role of informing and educating the public and of exposing mistakes of metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies,” he said.