Integrate traditional authorities in district administration – NGO
A non-governmental organization has called for the review of district assembly sub-structures to allow for automatic integration of traditional authorities in the district level administration.
Mobility Foundation, which made the call in a statement copied to the Ghana News Agency in Tamale on Monday, signed by its Executive Director, Mr Shiraz Anass, said steps should be taken to ensure legislative reforms to clearly define the role of traditional authorities in the decentralization system.
The statement is the summary of a project by Mobility Foundation dubbed; Accountability and Responsiveness through Effective Participation of
Traditional Leaders in the Local Governance Process, being supported by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA).
Mobility Foundation is a Tamale-based NGO into social enhancement programmes and offers capacity building programmes in the Nanumba North and the Nanumba South districts.
The two-year project, which started in December 2012, covers Nanumba North and Nanumba South districts of the Northern Region and it involves capacity building, sensitization, awareness creation, information sharing, and monitoring and evaluation of citizens’ engagement with districts officials.
The statement said the current district assembly system did not give room for traditional authorities to operate in terms of policy designing, planning and implementation of projects despite the fact that most people held the traditional authorities in high esteem and looked up to them for direction.
It said the non-integration of traditional authorities in the district administration system had led to the delivery of projects that were sometimes not in the best interest of the majority of the people at the local level.
The statement said the integration of traditional authorities in the district level administration would enhance service delivery as well as help ensure effective flow of information and transparency.
The statement said: “The participation of traditional authorities in the District Medium Term Development Plans (DMTDP), as well as the implementation and monitoring of such plans will add real value to the process and its policy outcomes.
“Traditional authorities have contacts with the grassroots and are, therefore, well positioned to express the views and experiences of people whose needs the DMTDP aims to address.”
It recommended that traditional councils should be sufficiently resourced to play specific roles including resource mobilization, supervision of projects, monitoring and feedback on quality of implementation.
Source: GNA