Increase in District Assembly Common Fund to 7.5%, not enough – expert

A local governance expert, Mr Amon Quartey has said an increase in the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) budgetary allocations from 5 per cent to 7.5 per cent would not be enough to accelerate development in the Districts Assemblies.

He proposed that the DACF budgetary allocations should be increased to at least 10 per cent to meet the developmental needs of the districts, open them up and create jobs to prevent people from migrating to the cities to seek greener pastures.

He said the previous National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration had 7.5 per cent allocations, which were reduced to 5 per cent with specifications on areas to spend the fund by the current administration.

Mr Quartey, who was reacting to issues in the NDC People’s Manifesto, indicated that the budgetary allocations if left in the current state, would starve the Assemblies of funds for major developmental projects.

He said the situation could leave the Assemblies with no money to spend on major projects except they generated their funds (IGF), which is often a challenge for Assemblies that did not have avenues for effective revenue mobilization.

Source: GNA