DCDs urged to take charge of decentralized departments

Dr Callistus Mahama, Head of the Local Government Service Secretariat, has urged Metropolitan, Municipal and District(MMD) Co-ordinating Directors, to take full charge of the decentralized departments under their Assemblies, and let their presence be felt.

He cautioned that it would no longer be acceptable for any of them to deny knowledge of what was happening in any of the departments.

Dr Mahama was speaking at the formal opening of the Second Conference of Co-ordinating Directors of MMD Assemblies and Regional Coordinating Directors in Koforidua.

The two-day conference is being organized under the theme: “Deepening Administrative Decentralization; The Role of Local Level Players.”

He said the country was passing through difficult times, and needed a new crop of leaders at the Assemblies who could think through and come out with good ideas to support the District Chief Executives.

Dr Mahama announced that a process has been initiated, and by next year, the Ghana Health Service and the Ghana Education Service, would be decentralized.

He, therefore, urged the DCD to be abreast with all government policies, so that they could provide the needed directives.

He called for efficient utilization of resources, and warned that the practice by some DCDs who occupied the bungalows in the districts, and did not sleep there, but commuted daily from the regional capitals to the districts at the expense of the Assemblies, must be stopped.

Mr Antwi-Boasiako Sekyere, Eastern Regional Minister, in an address read on his behalf, reminded the participants that the success or failure of the full implementation of administrative and fiscal decentralization depended on them.

He said government was determined to decentralize all facets of the national economy, to bring about the country's rapid socio-economic development.

The chairman of the Local Government Service Council who also chaired the function, Mr Francis N. Andan, called on the participants to learn all the policy documents that would be given at the conference, and motivate their subordinates to also read them because that would serve as a guide in their work.