Districts Assemblies urged to complete all outstanding projects

Accra, May 2, GNA - Mr Joshua Magnus Nicol, Common Fund Administrator, said on Saturday that district assemblies now have hundred percent control over funds given them to plan with, without any unsolicited deductions.

This is because all statutory deductions usually associated with quarterly releases were taken care of before the formula for the disbursement of funds for 2010 was applied. Mr Nicol who said this at the end of a two day workshop on the district assemblies' common fund for parliamentary press corps in Takoradi, urged all district assemblies to take on board all outstanding projects and programmes, outstanding payments, and adequate contingencies for any shortfall.

"The implication of this is that programmes listed in their budgets could be followed to meet their expectations."

He said this year's formula does not change much in terms of factors and indicators used, adding that, the four factors - Need factor, caters for education and health, Equalisation means all 170 district assemblies should have equal allocation, Service Pressure looks at the population density of some areas that may put pressure on government facilities and Responsiveness structure, measures revenue generation compares previous year revenue with that of present year. He said in terms of percentage allocation to each of the factors, equalization factor went down, while the responsive factor increased. This, he said, was used as a performance measure to motivate assemblies with high performance in revenue generation. He said another change in the 2010 formula was the use of net value to determine assembly's allocation.

Mr Paul Evans Aidoo, Western Regional Minister said decentralisation has been deepened as the various assemblies draw their budgets and receive money from the Common Fund secretariate for implementation.

He however lamented the numerous deductions from the assemblies by the Secretariate through the sector Ministry, which he said was sometimes without the approval of the assemblies, defeats the purpose for which the fund was established. This might be one of the reasons why assemblies have many uncompleted projects thus retarding efficient service delivery, he noted.

He said the regi onal coordinating councils (RCC) were mandated to monitor all central government funds allocated to assemblies, but regrettably the 1.5 per cent of all reserve funds set for monitoring was woefully inadequate considering the general poor road network in the country, particularly in the Western Region. Mr Aidoo called for an upward review of the percentage due the RCCs to enable them effectively monitors the utilization of the fund in the assemblies. He said Assemblies should submit returns on the DACF promptly through the RCC to the Common Fund Secretariat. He advised that the fund should go beyond the needs, equalization, and service pressure, and responsiveness factors to include the resource produced in a particular area.