Deputy Executive Director of Centre for Local Governance Advocacy Madam Gladys Tetteh has bemoaned the insufficiency of funds available to local assemblies for the management of their activities.
Madam Tetteh who believes the monies allocated these assemblies, if increased, will result in massive improvement, is calling for urgent government intervention to address the challenge.
“We support the transfer of adequate resources to our MMDAs… monies going to the assemblies are not enough, Assemblies are not getting enough resources from the Common Fund to implement their activities. So for us we even want government to send even more resources to the assemblies.
She urged persons calling for the AMA to be scrapped from the Common Fund to desist from such act.
According to her, the AMA needs as much resources as possible to be able to met out their duties, help the poor and vulnerable and clear slum areas in the Accra Metropolitan Area.
“Some have said we have some assemblies who do not need Common Fund like AMA I totally disagree… why would we say that AMA should be taken off Common Fund because they have a lot of resources.
“Don’t we have urban poverty here? Are we saying that everybody living in Accra here is ok? Our environment is ok? So we don’t need more resources? Look at them now with all the resources that they have they still get Common Fund but what do we see in Accra? We still have urban poverty’.
“Go to some of the areas, slums, people are suffering. They need more resources to even improve our communities. So I totally disagree with that impression that people say we should take the Metros off Common Fund I don’t share that view. I think they need to be resourced adequately.” She said this at the workshop organized by the Centre for Local Governance Advocacy.
The workshop she said, is to help empower the newly elected assembly members as well as provide guidance for members, to enable those facing difficulties deal with them.
Dr. Eric Oduro Osae, Dean of the Graduate Studies and Research-ILGS, urged Assembly members to endeavor to be established with the Legislative Instrument (L.I) as it is a policy of government.
He noted that some MMDAs undergo challenges of identifying their boundaries in the district, thus asked the newly elected members to map their boundaries as this will help in the coordination process of their district and help mobilize revenue.
Dr. Oduro Osae also charged the new members to improve visibility and interaction in their district by frequenting their local radio and TV stations, setting up notice boards among others.
The Capacity Building Workshop was held Thursday for newly created MMDAs in collaboration with the Inter-Ministerial Coordinating Committee (IMCC).
The training session was held for assembly members in zone two in the Greater Accra Region, which comprises of four districts.
