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GENERAL

Budget for New Assemblies to be determined in Jan, 2018

The Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Hajia Alima Mahama has disclosed that the 2018 Common Fund Formula for the District Assemblies is expected to be submitted to Parliament in January next year to determine the budget for newly created and elevated Assemblies.

Date Created : 12/18/2017 6:00:11 AM : Story Author : Christian Kpesese/ Ghanamps.com

According to the Local Government Minister who is also Member of Parliament for Nalerigu/Gambaga, new district assemblies and municipalities budget is before Parliament as well as the Legislative Instrument (LI).

“The budget is now before Parliament, the LI is also In Parliament, we cannot budget for those districts within this budget, until the LIs mature, so as far as we are concern they are not there. So until the LIs mature, you cannot ask for any money for any districts. That is why we are saying we will take seed money from the district assembly common fund to start the districts” the Minister explained.

Government has elevated 28 existing Districts to Municipal status, while 39 new MMDAs are being created.

The Minister further stated that her outfit explained to the Local Government and Rural Development Committee that that the common fund would be sent to Parliament and also intend to meet with the Economic Management team to include it in the Formula saying “The Formula will come to Parliament for approval next year, by January”.

The Committee’s report revealed that government’s priority programmes such as Planting for Food and Jobs and School Feeding Programmes will be funded through the District Assemblies Common Fund, where all the monies will be transferred to the Assemblies before deduction could be effected to finance the programmes.

The Committee assured to ensure that the Assemblies monitor and control the utilization of the funds.

The report also indicated that out of the total budget allocation of GH?272m, a total of GH?307m was expended in 2017 representing a budget overrun of GH?34m or 12.7% of the budget allocation. The Committee observed that the Ministry overspent the budgeted allocation in excess of GH?7m as at September 2017.

The Ministry explained that the over expenditure is as a result of the over performance of donor funded projects being undertaken by the Ministry in Kumasi and Cape Coast [Kotokuraba market and Kejetia market].

For 2018, the Ministry under local level development management intends to establish one public park in each region, train 3,000 youth in technical and vocational skills, resolve district boundaries disputes, develop local government financial management bill, issue fee fixing guidelines among other indicators they hope to achieve.

Meanwhile, Parliament has approved an amount of GH?359million for the Local Government and Rural Development and its Departments and Agencies for the implementation of its planned activities for the 2018 fiscal year.