Gov’t Cannot Deny Assemblies Their Common Fund – Fmr Minister

A former local Government Minister and three-times Member of Parliament for Sunyani West, Kwadwo Agyei-Darko, has insisted that until the constitution of the country is changed, no assembly can be denied its fair share of the District Assembly Common Fund.

Mr. Agyei-Darko was reacting to the call by the Head of Research at the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Dr. Franklin Oduro, that it doesn’t make sense for endowed districts such as the Tema Metropolitan Assembly, Accra Metropolitan Assembly, Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, which can generate enough internally funds to receive the same kind of allocations as other districts that are not doing well.

He made the disclosure on Sunyani-based Space FM’s weekend socio-political talk show, ‘The hot Points”, hosted by Seth Kwabena Opoku Agyemang.

Mr. Agyei-Darko said what he anticipates is that the Administrator of the Common Fund “could only review the formula to benefit assemblies which need development”.

He recommended that the Common Fund Administrator could adopt a strategy that “assemblies with the potential to increase internally generated funds may get little percentage in terms of common fund allocation, while assemblies with little potential may have much in terms of common fund distribution.”

Further, the former local Government Minister said assemblies with the potential to rake in more revenue, but are unable to collect it, should also be punished by raising their formula for accessing the Common Fund.

In answering the question as to how to punish non-performing assemblies, Mr. Adjei-Darko indicated that “the functional organizational assessment tool is one of the opportunities for assemblies which are performing well in the jurisdiction to accrue the much-needed facility to boost development.”