Government revising law on local government

Accra, July 3, GNA - Government is in the process of revising the legislation of the local government system to make it vibrant in resolving problems that currently plague the smooth transfer of power to the people in the communities. Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Capt Nkrabea Effah-Dartey (rtd), who announced this in Accra on Wednesday, said the changes had become necessary to ensure that the system evolved some 15 years ago was perfected to really meet the development needs of the people. He said proper definition of the role of district chief executives, size of the district assemblies and the establishment of the local political sub-structures were some of the major problems that would need to be addressed to make local government effective.

Capt Effah-Dartey was speaking on: "Decentralisation of Cities and Democratic Governance: A Comparative Analysis of the African and American Systems" at a forum organized as part of the on-going 12th Annual US-Africa Sister Cities Conference. The seven-day conference being attended by about 300 participants from US and other African countries is on the theme: "Strengthening Sister Cities in Africa - A Focus on HIV/AIDS Crises, Business, Trade Investment and Democratic Governance." The Deputy Minister said years of military intervention in the country had so deeply affected the development of the local government system that it had led to dependency of communities on central government to facilitate development. But there can be no true democracy without local governance and without people being involved in shaping decisions that affected their lives, he stressed.

Capt Effah-Dartey, therefore, underscored government's determination to pursue pragmatic ways of devolution of power and decision-making to the lower rungs since it was unrealistic to decide on programmes from a central point. "While the needs are basically the same in the communities, priorities might be quite different and the people must have a say in what they want," he said. On the District Assemblies' Common Fund, Capt Effah-Dartey said the government was also reviewing the prospects of increasing the percentage of the country's annual revenue distributed among the assemblies from the current five per cent to seven per cent as promised in the manifesto of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). Plans were also advanced to inaugurate new urban councils by the end of August, he said, adding that a legislative instrument had already been passed by Parliament. Mr Phillip Nkrumah, Municipal Chief Executive of Sekondi-Takoradi, suggested the fusing of a number of electoral areas to reduce the current large numbers of members of most district; municipal and metropolitan assemblies so that members could be paid.