Commission calls for monitoring of projects

The National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) has appealed to stakeholders in the Shama District to be vigilant and monitor the implementation of the District Medium Term Development Plan (DMTDP).

Mr. Jonathan Azasoo, Deputy Director of the NDPC in charge of Western and Central regions, made the call at a stakeholders’ forum in Shama on Wednesday, to validate a draft document of a four-year development plan.

The forum was jointly organized by the Assembly and Friends of the Nation (FON), an environmental NGO based in Takoradi with funding from STAR-Ghana.

He said on many occasions assemblies designed good development plans but they failed to formulate appropriate mechanisms to monitor and evaluate their implementation hence some of such projects were poorly executed at the expense of the tax payer.

Mr. Azasoo appealed to the citizenry to keep watching government or assembly projects and report any inconsistencies and shoddiness on the part of the contractors to the appropriate authorities for redress.

He also appealed to the Assembly to diversify its sources of revenue in order to increase its internally-generated funds to meet the needs and expectations of the people.

“The assembly can only execute these proposed projects only when there are sufficient resources available to implement them, otherwise they will look good on paper,” he said.

He therefore challenged the various assemblies to identify different sources of revenue generation and tap into them rather than relying solely on the central government support to implement them.

He commended the Assembly for following the guidelines spelled out by the NDPC in designing the DMTDP which conformed to the Ghana Shared Development Growth Agenda II and appealed to them to factor all concerns of the people into the plan.

Mr. Jeffery Scott, Assistant Planning Officer of the Assembly, took participants through the various aspects of the development plan.

Mr. Solomon Ampofo, Extractive Industries Programme Officer for FON, said the assemblies were the lead development implementing institutions by virtue of the Local Government Act; Act 462 that mandated them to execute projects that meet the needs and expectations of the people.

In view of this, he said, the NGO facilitated the inclusion of key stakeholders in the DMTDP process so that they could make inputs into the plan.

They included traditional authorities, youth groups, assembly members, faith based organisations, civil society organisations and gender based groups.

This, according to him, would keep the assemblies on their toes and ensure accountable and transparent governance as well as being responsive to the needs of the people.