Delays in the release of funds affecting devt

WA, Jan. 19, GNA- Delays in the dispatch of funds and other resources from the national level to the regional and district levels had over the years retarded the execution of development projects and other programmes throughout the country.

Most districts are yet to receive their 2007 last quarter share of the District Assembly Common Fund, thereby compelling them to roll over projects that were supposed to be executed before the year. These were contained in findings of a research carried out by the Centre for Budget Advocacy (CBA) of Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) in the Northern, Brong Ahafo, Western and the Upper West regions.

The study, among other things looked into the performance, problems and assistance for the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports and Ministry of Health and how they were coping with problems and challenges they faced in the course of their duties.

Mr. Nicholas Adamtey, the CBA Officer, disclosed these in a day's dissemination workshop for stakeholders at Wa in the Upper West. He said, most of the District Assemblies that were solely dependant on funds from the central government had to abandon a lot of projects until they received their budgetary allocations.

Mr. Nicholas Adamtey also said shoddy work by some contractors in the country was due to the lack of effective supervision and monitoring. He appealed to government to strengthen its supervision and monitoring units to enable them to perform their roles effectively to prevent waste of funds as had occurred over the years.

Mr. Adamtey suggested the involvement of civil society organisations in the day to day implementation to compel executors of such programmes do the right thing and on schedule to ensure judiciously utilization of government funds.

He said research also revealed that, although certain budgets were often approved, the funds were not received, paving way for a lot of speculations and blame games.

Mr. Adamtey therefore appealed to government to expedite action on the release of funds to give the communities their needed development and to encourage foreign donors to assist the country.

Some of the participants from the Ghana Health Service complained about the usage of "Musugu" a local herb, by the people in the region, who believed it could facilitate the delivery by pregnant women. They said although several educational programmes had been adopted to discourage pregnant women from using such herbs since it could be dangerous to their uterus, some of them were still using it leading to some deaths. The participants also appealed to health workers, especially nurses to treat their clients courteously.