Most Assemblies have become ‘financial burden’ to government  – Azasoo

Assemblies have become “a huge financial burden” to government due to lack of basic necessities to merit the status of assemblies, Mr Jonathan Azasoo, a Local Governance Expert with the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) has said.

According to him, such assemblies lack the basic economic guarantees, infrastructural facilities and the needed logistics to be able to effectively discharge their administrative and legal duties.

Mr Azasoo said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Cape Coast at a training workshop for Assembly Members.

He indicated that, many districts do not have administrative offices, accommodation as well as basic social infrastructures such as hospitals, schools, telecommunication services, roads, water and security to attract and retain professionals posted to area.

“I can confidently tell you that many of the districts were better off not created. They rely on the meagre District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) for virtually everything. They have become an albatross around the neck of government.”

He noted that any district that had become overly reliant on only external sources of funding, particularly Common Fund was at a high risk of non-performance.

However, he encouraged such assemblies to step up their revenue mobilisation efforts to increase their Internally Generated Revenue by adopting more pragmatic and innovative strategies to rake in revenue to support development projects.

The Local Governance expert counselled the assemblies to see funds coming from external sources such as the DACF, the District Development Fund (DDF) and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) as funds to complement their IGF and not to replace it.

He also urged the government to keenly consider the economic viability or otherwise of a geographical location before creating new districts.

Source: GNA