Only core-staff of Assemblies benefit from training

Tamale, April 4, GNA- A research report carried out by the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) has indicated that capacity building and training programmes for district assemblies has been skewed in favour of the core staff of the assemblies to the neglect of other stakeholders in the decentralisation processes.

According to the research, most of the Sub-District Structures (SDS) of the assemblies were not functioning because of inadequate funding and the non-availability of operational logistics. This was made this known at the launch of two "Research Reports" authored by Mr. Richard Kambootah and Mr. Simon Seddoh Bokor, both staff of the institute, in Tamale on Tuesday.

Ibis- Ghana, an international NGO funded the publication of the research report.

Mr. Bokor authored the first Report titled: "Strengthening community participation in local governance: A case study of Ga East and West districts", with the second report: "Enhancing capacity -building at the sub-structures level for sustainable local (district) level development: A case study of East Gonja District Assembly", written by Mr. Kambootah.

The study showed that lack of effective operationalisation of the district assembly sub-structures due to poor human resource quality and the subsequent building of their capacity to improve upon their performance was a major hurdle.

Madam Agnes Gandaa, Co-ordinator of TEPCON, a catholic NGO who launched the Research Report, commended the two authors for coming out with such "brilliant material", saying that it would make good reading for students of local government, government/public officials and NGOs involved in decentralisation.

She expressed the hope that the work would serve as reference material for other researches and come out with further findings that would help strengthen the local government and decentralisation system. Madam Gandaa appealed to the researchers to try and find out the level of participation of women and the disabled in the district assembly system.

Dr. Callistus Mahama, Director of the ILGS (Tamale Campus) commended Ibis- Ghana for its support to the ILGS, especially in the areas of funding to build the capacity of various institutions and the district assemblies.