Dr Nana Ato Arthur
The Head of the Office of the Local Government Service (LGS), Dr Nana Ato Arthur, has spelt out his plans and strategies to make Ghana’s decentralization process more vibrant and efficient to propel the development of the country.
He said strengthening the developing planning units of the Regional Coordinating Councils and the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) is crucial for the collection of reliable data to ensure effective planning and budgeting.
Dr Ato Arthur made this known in an interview with the media in Accra.
He said so much is expected from staff of MMDAs and promised that building the capacity of staff would be his priority.
Dr Ato Arthur said his outfit would encourage the sharing of skills and knowledge by assemblies as they have varied capacities to help promote best practices in their various offices to ensure balanced development in the country’s 216 MMDAs.
He said there is the need to use Information Communication Technology (ICT) to improve the Internally Generated Fund (IGF) of MMDAs, adding that, majority of the assemblies relied on the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) for development, which was quite inadequate.
Dr Ato Arthur said the 2016 report on the performance of MMDAs, revealed that the best 20 assemblies have an average of 33 per cent of their revenue coming from the IGF and the worst performing assemblies contributed less than three per cent of the total revenue from the IGF in relation to the DACF and other government grants.
Thus, he said, part of his vision is to use ICT to facilitate and develop a Digital Mapping System to assist in the identification of rating properties within a particular assembly and use professionally trained revenue collectors to collect more revenue to improve on the IGF.
The Head of Service also identified sanitation as one of the core mandates of the MMDAs saying he would seek to build the capacity of assemblies to improve on sanitation in their various localities.
Challenges of the Service
Dr Ato Arthur said the major challenge of the LGS just like many other public institutions is inadequate financial resources to support the effective delivery of their mandate of securing effective administration and management of the country.
He said the LGS needed funds to offer motivational packages as well as regular training for its staff for them to embark on knowledge upgrading.
Dr Ato Arthur said the refusal of staff to adhere to postings from one assembly to another by the Head of Service was also a challenge as well as staff lateness to work, especially in the rural areas where lateness to work seems to be a normal routine.
“In this regard, the Head of Service is insisting on the use of electronic biometric clocking system in every assembly where staff would clock in when they report and exit at work”.
He also noted with concern, the challenge of some service staff with fake certificates, adding that, “the LGS under my watch would crop out officers with fake certificates”.
As a start, he said, the LGS has ordered all professionals of the Service, to submit their certificate for verification and authentication by the requisite awarding institutions.
Dr Ato Arthur said some individuals who faked their grades with the aim of cheating the system would be placed where they belong.
“Some staff are purporting that I have come to witch-hunt them, but this is rather to ensure that the right things are done in the service for the effective delivery of its mandate in developing the country as well as ensuring that the service remains a professional service.”