The Assembly Member for the Lower Bobikuma Electoral Area in the Agona West Municipality, Mr Frank Yeboah, has stated that the government’s new guidelines in the disbursement of the District Assembly’s Common Fund (DACF) will cripple the activities of Metropolitan, Municipal, District Assemblies (MMDAs) across the country.

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According to him, per the guidelines, only a paltry 20 per cent of the quarterly allocation was available to the MMDAs for developmental purposes, which was woefully inadequate and would eventually stifle the progress of all District Assemblies. “It appears, henceforth, all development projects would come directly from the central government, thereby taking away the power of district assemblies to decide on its own development,” he told the Daily Graphic in an interview at Agona Swedru.

Under the new guidelines by the government, 40 per cent of the DACF would be used for school feeding, 20 per cent for Planting for Food and Jobs, another 20 per cent for the Nation Builders Corps (NaBCO) and the remaining 20 per cent for other activities of the MMDAs. He mentioned that the new directives would render the assemblies incapacitated, saying it was totally wrong for the government’s flagship programmes to consume a chunk of the DACF meant for assemblies that were already finding it difficult to raise enough internally generated funds (IGF) to augment that of the common fund.

He indicated that aside some donor funds that assemblies received to undertake some development projects, the DACF was a major source of revenue that Assemblies relied on to fund some of their projects, adding that “the new directive would slow down development in most communities”. He stressed that “the dissipation of the DACF of the MMDAs per the new guidelines will negatively affect the smooth and effective administration of Assemblies and that the government should have a second look at the directive”.

“Authority does not reside in the central government as to how the DACF should be used and that the government is constitutionally mandated to pay it to the Assemblies for them to determine their present needs and use the funds to address such needs accordingly”, he pointed out. The Assembly Member noted further that the new guidelines had the tendency to kill the decentralisation process which gave MMDAs the power to take charge of their own development.

He pointed out that the Assemblies would be ineffective since per the directive, they would be starved off the needed funds to drive their development projects, adding that ‘henceforth, community members should not blame MMDAs if they do not experience growth and development in their respective communities’. He stated that the government’s directive to the MMDAs to increase their IGF [Internally Generated Funds] was facing challenges since some Assemblies were facing difficulties in generating such funds apparently due to reluctance on the part of the people.

He also stated that the Assembly lacked qualified personnel required to develop functional strategic plans and help generate adequate financial resources from the people. “We are waiting for the Local Government Service to fill many administrative vacancies in the Assembly,” he added.

He explained that “the high poverty rate among Ghanaians, for instance, was a contributory factor to the non-payment of property rate which MMDAs could generate so much revenue from”, saying that beyond the District capitals, Assemblies generally found it difficult to collect property rates from other areas since most of the residents were poor. He called on all Assembly Members across the country to join the crusade to mount pressure on the central government to reverse the directive since it was not in the best interest of District Assemblies and the nation as whole.

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In response, the Municipal Chief Executive for Agona West Municipal Assembly, Mrs. Justina Marigold Assan, appointed by the central government in 2017, said the new directive was a government decision and that there was no need to fight it since nothing could be done about it.

Source: https://www.graphic.com.gh/news/politics/new-common-fund-guidelines-will- cripple-district-assemblies.html (Accessed 31/5/2018, modified for the purpose of examination).

i. ii. iii.

3.

Identify and explain the specific types of administrative and fiscal decentralization practiced by the Agona West Municipal Assembly. (10 marks)

Discuss two (2) solutions that could be adopted to improve the internal generated funds of the Agona West Municipal Assembly. (10 marks)

State one (1) reason why the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of Agona West Municipal Assembly appears unwilling to protest against central government control over the disbursement of the DACF; and, propose one solution that could make MCEs more responsive to local development problems. (10 marks)