Comply with DACF use strictly - Greater Accra Minister to MMDAs
The Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in the Greater Accra Region have been cautioned to ensure strict compliance in the utilisation of the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) in line with the approved guidelines to ensure maximum impact and value for money.
Any deviation from the approved guidelines, the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Linda Akweley Ocloo, said, would undermine the very objectives of decentralisation.
She also urged the coordinating directors and management of the Shai-Osudoku District Assembly (SODA) to be supportive in that respect.
Mrs Ocloo, who is also the National Democratic Congress Member of Parliament (MP) for Shai-Osudoku, gave the advice during a working visit to SODA at Dodowa last Tuesday.
She directly engaged the assembly members, staff and the entire leadership of the assembly in order to appreciate at first-hand the challenges facing the assembly.
She was accompanied by the Chief Director of the Greater Accra Regional Coordinating Council, Livian Baako, Greater Accra Regional Economic Planning Officer, Jemima Lomotey, Deputy Regional Coordinating Director, Samuel Antwi-Boasiako, among others.
“There have been several complaints of some staff who deliberately try to frustrate the process in the utilisation of the fund. Such behaviour will not be tolerated in the resetting of the district and we all need to work together as a team with one purpose,” the minister stressed.
Audit infractions
The regional minister said another pressing issue that continued to engage national attention was the persistence of audit infractions within the assemblies in the country.
She expressed concern that those infractions not only undermined public trust but also affected the smooth delivery of essential services.
She, therefore, charged all the assemblies in the region to strengthen internal control mechanisms, adhere strictly to laid-down financial management regulations, and work collaboratively to reduce audit infractions, stressing, “transparency and accountability must remain at the heart of our governance system”.
“Assembly members remain the vital link between government and the people and this support is both timely and well deserved,” she said.
The regional minister encouraged the District Chief Executive (DCE) of SODA, Ignatius Godfred Dordoe, to cultivate a cordial relationship with the technocrats whose service and expertise remained invaluable even beyond the tenure of the present administration.
Earlier in his welcome remarks, the DCE for SODA, Mr Dordoe, enumerated a lot of challenges the assembly was facing since the new administration took over, including what he described as unprecedented high level of debt left by the previous administration, which had become a burden for the new administration, including non-payment of SSNIT contributions of workers of the assembly, which had resulted in a legal action by SSNIT.
