Wean Common Fund off extra burden
Members of Parliament have urged the ministers of Local Government and Rural Development and Finance to wean the District Assemblies Common
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Fund (DACF) off extra onerous and difficult burden of support for institutions such as the Sanitation Model of the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) and the National School Feeding Programme.
They said although the programmes were useful, the use of the common fund to carry out those activities had worsened the already precarious financial situation of the assemblies.
The MPs’ concern was contained in a report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Local Government and Rural Development on the 2014 Annual Report of the DACF presented to the entire House yesterday.
It was unanimously adopted.
In Parliament when a report of a committee is adopted, the views expressed therein become the views of the entire House.
Report
The report, presented by the Chairman of the committee, Mr Dominic Azumah, said the common fund was loaded with many social intervention programmes by the central government which had worsened the plight of the assemblies financially.
That, it added, was defeating the rationale behind the establishment of the fund.
Receipts and disbursements
The total amount received by the Office of the Administrator of the Common Fund in 2014, according to the report, was GH¢828,663,950.
The breakdown of receipts is as follows: third quarter of 2013, GH¢202,702,189; fourth quarter of 2013, GH¢217,235,396; first quarter of 2014, GH¢266,403,521; second quarter of 2014, GH¢142,332,884.
With regard to disbursements, the administrator paid GH¢315,090,980 to metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies across the country.
The administrator, according to the report, also made payments on behalf of the assemblies totalling GH¢131,410,840.
It added that all the payments were made subject to the submission of mandate by the assemblies.
Debate
Contributing to the debate on the adoption of the report, the MP for Bekwai, Mr Joe Osei-Owusu, noted that disbursements were, on a regular basis, made from the DACF for other purposes other than development.
He said, for example, that the ministry sometimes deducted money from the fund to purchase motorbikes for the assemblies.
Such practices, he said, left lesser funds for development for the assemblies.
"The government must desist from dipping its hands into the fund to make purchases for the assemblies. Those purchases may not be the priorities of the assemblies.
“The government should take its hands off, so that local priorities will be determined by the district assemblies," he said.