‘Assembly staff must be politically neutral’

The District Co-ordinating Director for Amansie West, Alhaji J. M. Haidi has reminded staff of the Local Government system on the need to always maintain political neutrality in the performance of their public functions and duties.

He said staff of local service should not be seen to act as agents of or for the interest of political, social, ethnic, gender or other interest groups.

Alhaji Haidi gave the admonition when the District Chief Executive for Amansie West, Mr. Alex Kwame Bonsu, met with staff to brief them on the introduction of a performance management system by the Local Government Service as a measure to improve service delivery at the workplace and move away from the practice of filling of annual appraisal forms merely for the purpose of earning promotion.

A circular from local government service secretariat and ARCC has gone round to District Assemblies on the policy directives.

The DCD also reminded the staff that they (staff) were not to seek election to office as member of the assembly and that local government officers should resign from the service before offering for any such position and advised all officers to adhere strictly to the provisions of the code. Mr. Haidi asked heads of departments to furnish the district coordinating director’s office with their action plans to enable the assembly support them.

The Co-ordinating Director said appraisal reports would now be based performance and officers’ attitude to work and not merely on the signing of attendance book. DCE Bonsu called on staff of the district assembly to eschew lateness and absenteeism and work harder for the good of the nation. He appealed to the assembly staff to be deeply involved in revenue collection to enable the assembly undertake development projects.

Mr. Bonsu commended the management and heads of departments for the wonderful job done to enable the assembly qualify for interventions as the District Development Fund (DDF) established in 2006 as an alternative Internal Generated Fund to support Assembly’s programmes as well as the Functional Organizational Assessment Tool (FOAT) which provides incentive for Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies.

Meanwhile, staff of the assembly has called for an incentive package for hard working staffs.