Former Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Kojo Adjei Darko, has called for a review of the allocation of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) to Members of Parliament (MPs), arguing that legislators have no voting rights in district assemblies and therefore should not receive a share of the fund meant for local development.
According to him, the portion of the Common Fund allocated to MPs should instead be redirected to elected Assembly Members, who work directly with communities and are better positioned to address the developmental needs of their electoral areas.
Mr. Adjei Darko made the remarks while addressing participants at the Ashanti Regional Presiding Members Conference held on Thursday at the Miklin Hotel in Kumasi.
He maintained that although Members of Parliament may attend meetings of district assemblies, they are not full members with voting rights and therefore play no direct role in the decision-making processes of the assemblies.
“Members of Parliament are not voting members of district assemblies. If they do not have voting rights, then there is no justification for allocating part of the District Assemblies Common Fund to them,” he stressed.
The former minister argued that Assembly Members remain the true representatives of the grassroots because they are elected specifically to oversee development at the local level and engage directly with their communities on a daily basis.
He explained that many Assembly Members continue to face enormous financial challenges in carrying out their responsibilities, despite being at the forefront of identifying and addressing the developmental needs of their electoral areas.
According to him, increasing financial support for Assembly Members would significantly enhance community development, improve citizen participation in local governance and strengthen the country’s decentralisation programme.
Mr. Adjei Darko further urged government and policymakers to undertake reforms that would empower Assembly Members with adequate resources to effectively perform their constitutional mandate.
He noted that redirecting the MPs’ share of the Common Fund to Assembly Members would enable more community projects such as schools, boreholes, drainage systems, health facilities and other basic infrastructure to be executed at the local level.
The former minister also called for renewed efforts to strengthen district assemblies, describing them as the foundation of Ghana’s democratic decentralisation system.
Participants at the conference, which brought together Presiding Members from various district assemblies across the country, discussed issues affecting local governance, decentralisation and strategies to improve the effectiveness of metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies.
The comments by the former Local Government Minister are expected to reignite discussions over the role of Members of Parliament in local governance and the continued allocation of a portion of the District Assemblies Common Fund to legislators.
