By Stephen Kwabena Effah
Saturday, 12 May 2007
The Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Alternative, Dr. Sulley Gariba, has said in spite of the strong legal basis for Ghana’s decentralisation, its implementation so far has been lagging.
That, he attributed to weak capacity for implementation coupled with lack of sufficient resources and personnel among others, adding "there is not much physical decentralisation".
He observed that there were some contradictions in the decentralisation legislations and called for the need to harmonise them.
He indicated that there has been a marginalisation of metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies in the implementation of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy as the various ministries have been assigned the lead role.
Speaking at a best practice workshop on decentralisation in Ghana on Tuesday, he said that, for in stance there is no prescribed role for MMDAs on HIV/AIDS under the GPRS, although the national AIDS strategy has considerable focus on district level strategies and actions.
The two-day workshop is being organised by the Institute of Local Government Studies and sponsored by CIDA with support from the District Capacity Building Project (DISCAP).
It seeks to increase popular participation in governance, improve public accountability and increase public sector effectiveness.
Dr.Gariba further expressed concern about the flow of resources to the MMDAs which is done through the central ministries for projects implementation.
He also noted that there is incomplete transfer of financial and human resources to MMDAs and with continuing legislative overlap.
He explained that some personnel who owe allegiance to the central ministries and ought to have been transferred to the MMDAs as indicated in the Local Government Act have still not been transferred.
"Even within the current context, it is possible to enhance decentralisation and achieve improved results," he pointed out.
He said as decentralisation policy is fully implemented best practices should continue to provide useful lessons and models.
Dr.Chris Brown, a Canadian Team Leader of DISCAP, indicated that as a result of these challenges, the desired outcome objectives of decentralisation has not yet been achieved.
He said policy process for and about local government is still dominated by the central governments.
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