Chief of Staff warns public officials

The Chief of Staff, Mr. Julius Debrah, has expressed concern about the lackadaisical attitude of some public servants, saying that it is counter-productive and stalls development.

He therefore, urged Ghanaians to rekindle the spirit of patriotism in discharging their duties in order to achieve social, economic and political development.

Speaking at a signing ceremony of performance contract between regional ministers and regional coordinating directors in Accra yesterday Mr. Debrah bemoaned the conduct of some public officers towards members of the public.

The Chief of Staff said he was alarmed at the abuse of social media networks such as whatsapp during working hours.

“We must dare to be different. If you want to follow the status quo, you will not be noticed, things must be done differently,” he said and appealed to the ministers and coordinating directors to work diligently in the interest of the nation.

The Chief of Staff said the performance contract was meant to ensure effective decentralisation, to promote local and national development.

While commending them for the successes they achieved in the 2015 contract Mr. Debrah urged collaboration between stakeholders to achieve desired results.

He advised the ministers to release funds and other resources to the coordinating directors to ensure efficient monitoring and evaluation of projects in their jurisdiction.

Government, he said would continue to provide the needed support to metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies.

Mr. Calistus Mahama, the Head of Local Government Service, commended coordinating directors for living up to expectation last year adding that attention would be placed on the thematic areas-human, financial management and work environment.

He identified lack of adequate budgetary support, human resource and logistics as well as functional tender committee as challenges and suggested that steps must be taken to address them.

Mr. Mahama observed that extraneous expenditure on security in some districts had drained their budgets and appealed to the government to allocate more funds to those districts.

Alhaji Amidu Suleimani, the Upper West Regional Minister, and dean of the regional ministers’ caucus, thanked the Local Government Service for bringing development to their areas.