Wean off Metropolitan Assemblies from Common Fund - CDD

Mr Awal Mohammed, a Research Officer of the Centre for Democratic Development-Ghana (CDD), has asked the Government to wean off all the Metropolitan Assemblies from the Common Fund subventions.

This, he explained would reduce their over-dependence and reliance on common fund to improve efficiency, productivity and make them more transparent and accountable to the citizenry.

"Weaning off such assemblies will help Government re-focus its expenditure on less-developed and new assemblies by providing them with basic social amenities to accelerate development," he said.

Mr Mohammed was addressing participants at the launch of the Central Region District League Table in Cape Coast on Thursday.

He said that would effectively help the Assemblies to improve upon their internally generated funds (IGF) to make them more financially viable to carry out their mandated duties effectively.

With this, he said the Metropolitan Chief Executives (MCEs) of the Assemblies would have viral financial autonomy and elasticity to embark on major restructuring to demystify the bureaucratic and administrative bottlenecks to enable them borrow on their own balance sheet to finance their activities.

According to him, the reliance on District Assembly Common Fund as their source of finance for their capital projects was the bane of the under-development of most assemblies.

He therefore, challenged the assemblies to strive at blocking the financial loopholes and administer proper tax administration to rake in the needed revenue to support projects.

Mr Kwamena Duncan, the Central Regional Minister, underscored the need for MMDAs to recommit themselves to the fight against sanitation, which he said was a major challenge for most assemblies.

He admonished the high performing districts not to be complacent but work hard to improve upon their performance.