The 261 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies dotted around the country are allegedly being deprived of the needed funds for development at the Local Government level.
This is because the Government of President Akufo-Addo has failed to make timely releases of the Constitutionally mandated statutory fund to the Administrator of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) for onward disbursement to these assemblies.
Meanwhile, Article 252 (2) of the 1992 Constitution provides that: “Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, Parliament shall make provision for the allocation of not less than five percent of the total revenues of Ghana to the District Assemblies for development, and the amount shall be paid into the District Assemblies Common Fund in quarterly instalments.”
Addressing a Press Conference within the precincts of Parliament on Thursday, October 21, 2021, the Minority Caucus on the Parliamentary Select Committee on Local Government, Decentralization and Rural Development, accused the President Akufo-Addo led Government of misapplication of the constitutionally created fund by piling up arrears and thereby rendering it impotent.
According to them, aside depriving the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) of the needed funds for the discharge of its constitutionally mandated duties to the assemblies, the amounts due to the DACF were under-provided for and owed to the fund for 2017 and 2018.
For example, the Government introduced the Earmarked Funds Capping and Realignment Act, under which the Common Fund was capped to retain some funds for the central Government spending. This deprived the fund of the full amount of money which should accrue to it.
The Deputy Ranking on the Committee, Benjamin Kpodo, who addressed the press, further revealed that the Government was indebted to the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) to the tune of over 2 Billion Ghana Cedis for its failure to release funds for the operations of the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies for one complete year.
“The Ministry of Finance is very heavily indebted to the DACF. The amount has run to about two billion Ghana Cedis (GHC2,000,000.00+). This is made up as follows: 2019 – GHC700 million (per Auditor-General’s report); 2020 – GHC587 million; 2021 – GHC884 million (Estimates for only 1st and 2nd Quarters),” he said.
The Minority Group has therefore called on the Government to pay all the arrears due the DACF for the years 2019, 2020 and 2021. It has also served notice to go to court again if the Government does not keep within a maximum of one-month release of funds after the end of each quarter as envisaged by the Constitution.
The Deputy Ranking further revealed that the Government has not as of yet released any amount of money to the DACF for distribution to the MMDAs for the whole year.
“For the whole of 2021, not even a pesewa has been paid to the DACF. We have been informed that a release letter was issued for the first quarter for an amount of GHC434,291,958.21. But no money has been paid to the DACF as of today,” he said.
Source: Clement Akoloh||parliamentnews360.com
