Sunyani, Nov. 23, – Hajia Alima
Mahama, the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development has directed
Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to capture
implementation of government’s poverty intervention policies into their budget
and medium term development plans.
She said the implementation of
the Planting for Food and Jobs, One-District-One-Factory, the District and the Centre
for Agriculture, Commerce and Technology programme would be successful and
yield positive outcomes if those policies are central in the 2018 budgets of
the MMDAs.
Other policy, the sector minister
said required utmost support from the MMDAs is the National Property Digital
Addressing System.
Hajia Mahama said this in a
speech read on her behalf by Mr Augustine Collins Ntim, the Deputy Minister, at
the opening session of the 2017 national conference of coordinating directors,
underway in Sunyani.
Organised by the Local Government
Service, the two-day conference is being held under the theme: “Transforming
Leadership in the Local Government Service; Managing Local Resources for
Sustainable Development”.
Hajia Mahama said the Ministry
would continue its responsibility over MMDAs and would conduct regular
monitoring on the status of implementation of government policies and
programmes geared towards poverty reduction and wealth creation.
“We cannot afford to falter, but
to ensure that these policies are implemented to the latter”, she said and
stressed the need for the MMDAs to re-orient their entire staff on such
policies to enable them to have “a total buy-in”.
“MMDAs would be required to
update their profiles to reflect the policies” the sector minister indicated
and ordered the various Regional Coordinating Councils to monitor and evaluate
the implementation of the policies as part of their routine supervision of the
operations of the MMDAs.
Hajia Mahama said that the
government appreciated the numerous initiatives of the Local Government Service
towards administrative decentralisation and effective service delivery and
would continue to provide the needed support as an impetus to improving and
sustaining these efforts for accelerated national development.
Dr Nana Ato Arthur, the Head of
the Local Government Service, said as the cream of the local government staff,
it is expected of Regional and District Coordinating Directors to support
government’s efforts to make the MMDAs and structures below them more
democratic.
He said the Service intends to
establish an award scheme for innovation and creativity, adding that to that
effect a team of experts would be tasked to evaluate each MMDA on any area that
might work out to achieve innovation and improvement in their output.
Dr Arthur urged the staff of the
MMDAs to have new attitudes and approach to work and also exhibit high sense of
professionalism for increased productivity.
Mr Kwaku Asomah-Cheremeh, the
Brong-Ahafo Regional Minister, said without the support of the MMDAs,
implementation of government policies and programmes would not be fruitful and
urged the Assemblies to provide the needed assistance.
GNA
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