District Assemblies urged to activate sub-structures

Tamale, Oct. 17, GNA - Alhaji Mustapha Ali Idris, Northern Regional Minister, has appealed to district assemblies to make effort to establish sub-district structures for the decentralisation process to be complete. He said the government's decentralisation policy could not be completed without these structures being in place and functioning as envisaged in the Local Government Act. Alhaji Idris said this when he opened a five-day workshop on "Strategic Management for District Chief Executives in the Northern Region" organised by the Northern Regional Coordinating Council (NRCC) in Tamale on Tuesday.

The Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) is facilitating the workshop. Alhaji Idris said the assembly system was made up of checks and balances and was not intended that one person or component should hijack the whole process. "We are to operate in such a way as to allow the other component parts function effectively and perform their roles towards the betterment of the whole." He said the main excuse often used to defend the inability to activate sub-structures was lack of funds for payment of salaries of personnel who would run them. He noted with regret that the assemblies had not been able to mobilise sufficient locally generated funds to absorb these salaries and were looking at the government to provide the funds for payment of personnel at the Sub-Metro Assembly, Area and Town councils and Unit Committees.

Touching on the recent floods that devastated the three northern regions, Alhaji Idris said the experience should serve as a warning and get all the assemblies prepared for such eventualities. He called for the establishment of a contingency plan to handle such disasters in the future. Alhaji Aliu appealed to all the assemblies to develop district contingency plans and submit them to the Regional Coordinating Council to be compiled and collated into a regional contingency plan to form the basis on which to ask for assistance in times of disasters. Dr. Stephen Addae, the Rector of GIMPA, said GIMPA would soon establish satellite campuses at Tamale, Kumasi and Takoradi. 17 Oct 07