STRENGTHEN SUPERVISORY ROLES OVER DISTRICT ASSEMBLIES (PAGE 15, JULY 17)

THE Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, Mr Kwadwo Nyamekye-Marfo, has called on the various Regional Co-ordinating Councils (RCC) to strengthen their supervisory roles over the district assemblies.
He said the RCCs should be empowered to apply sanctions against non-performing and errant assemblies.
Mr Nyamekye-Marfo made the call when he gave an address during the inauguration of the re-constituted Brong Ahafo RCC in Sunyani.
The Regional Minister suggested that a separate cost centre be created for the RCCs so that their programmes and activities could be budgeted for and funded adequately to enable them to perform their functions satisfactorily.
He disclosed that, “We have no development budget to undertake development activities, such as the provision of office and residential accommodation for public officers who are posted to the region to work”.
According to him, the RCC subsisted on the funds allocated to the office of the President under government machinery and had to apply to that office for the funds to run the secretariat, which he said sometimes delayed unduly, thereby frustrating the programmes and activities of the secretariat.
The Regional Minister pointed out that by the Constitution the role of the RCC was to facilitate co-ordination, monitoring, supervision and backstopping of the assemblies and to provide a forum for representatives from local authorities and the chiefs.
However, he said, the RCC performed several functions which, he noted, were not captured in the legislation and that the most significant functions, in so far as they accounted for a sizeable proportion of the RCC’s resources, were, protocol function, involving the hosting of dignitaries and the celebration of national and regional events.
“We are also expected to co-ordinate and monitor the activities of decentralised ministeries departments and agencies (MDAs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that operate at the regional level and that is the reason why regional heads of MDAs are ex-officio members of the RCC,” he explained.
Mr Nyamekye-Marfo said it was disheartening to observe that in spite of these extensive responsibilties assigned to the RCC by the legislation, the regulatory environment, as presently conceived, neither recognised the region as a decision-making body within the local government structure nor provided the RCCs with the means of enforcement and the sanctions that were necessary to ensure the districts’ compliance with central government policies and programmes.
He declared, “No provision is made for the funding of the assigned functions beyond ad hoc arrangements through warrants, the two per cent of total District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) allocation to the region and in recent past, HIPC Funds”.
The regional minister observed that sanitation in the municipalities and districts, especially in the urban communities, had been deteriorating and that the assemblies appeared to have been overwhelmed by the filth that had engulfed almost every major town in the region.
He further noted that drainage systems meant purposely for the free flow of waste water were chocked with silt and refuse while communities did not have proper places of convenience, and that, the management of both liquid and solid wastes was not up to standard and for some places, liquid waste was dumped indiscriminately on the ground.
He said most municipal/district assemblies did not even have technically engineered final disposal sites.