THE HEAD of the Local Government Service, Dr. Nana Ato Arthur has given a six-day ultimatum to 11 Municipal and District Assemblies to explain why disciplinary action should not be taken against their staff for the Assemblies’ inability to meet requirements under the District Performance Assessment Tool (DPAT VI).
The affected District Assemblies have less than one week with effect from October 11, 2022 to respond to the directive and their responses, which must be ın writing, should reach the Head of Local Government Service latest by October 17, 2022.
The Head of Service’s directive was contained in a letter addressed to the District Chiefs Executives of the 11 affected Dristrict Assemblies.
The 11 Assemblies which could not qualify to access these funds and are currently being theatened with sanctions include Ahafo Ano South District, Ejisu Municipal, Asunafo North Municipal, Dormaa East District, Banda District, Awutu Senya District, Mfantseman Municipal, Shai-Osudoku District, Yendi District, Builsa North District and Sissala East Municipal Assemblies.
Explaining the need for the sanctions, Nana Ato Arthur said the Assemblies’ failure to meet the DPAT requirement has deprived citizens at their jurisdictions the development they deserve.
İn view of this, he maintained that the Head of Local Government Service considers the Assemblies poor performance as a very serious breach of the effective and efficient performance of their mandatory duty, the reasons for which sanctions must apply.
The District Performance Assessment Tool (DPAT) is a tool developed to assess the Performance of the District Assemblies, the qualication of which the District Assemblies Command Fund (DACF) makes available additional resouces for MMDAs.
Nana Ato said the Assemblies that meet a mininmum performance requirement under DPAT can access the DPAT funds to execute their development projects to improve the living standard of their constituents thereby contributing to the eradication of poverty which is one of the pillars of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs).
The Government of Ghana through the Ministry of Local Government, Decentralization and Rural Development Assessment asseses Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies throughout the country using the District Assemblies Performance Assessment Tool in 2022 but the11 named districts failed to meet the approved National Average Mark of 93 thus disqualifying them from accessing the Fund.
This, the Head of Service, said the staff at the affected Assemblies must be held liable for what he termed “a breach of their mandatory duty”.
By Kow Richardson
Kumasi
