Dan Botwe vrs Naa Torshie: Local govt parliamentary committee backs Naa Torshie Addo

The member of the Parliamentary Committee on Local Government and Rural Development have reportedly backed the Administrator of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF), Irene Naa Torshie Addo, in her supposed feud with the Minter for Local Government and Rural Development, Dan Botwe.

According to a report by The Chronicle newspaper, the committee has said that Naa Torshie Addo never side-lined Dan Botwe in the disbursement of the DACF as reported in the media.

The report indicated that the committee investigated the alleged rift between the two, which included meeting both parties separately and came to the conclusion that the matter was been blown out of proportion.

But, the chairman of the committee, Emmanuel Akwasi Gyamfi, in an interview with the newspaper, said that their investigation revealed that there was only a lapse in communication between the minister and the administrator in the disbursement of the Common Fund in question.

“This is quite unfortunate. I can’t defend the deputy minister who wrote on behalf of the minister. Either he had explicit instruction from the minister to write to the Administrator that this was the ministry’s input.

“But that was what we were shown: that the Administrator wrote for the inputs from the ministry, but the response was not coming from the ministry, so one of the deputy ministers also wrote on behalf of the minister to the Administrator.

“It didn’t go well, as per the minister’s instruction that you have to withdraw the letter. If it had gone well with the minister, that withdrawal wouldn’t have come,” he is quoted to have said by The Chronicle.

The Minority Chief Whip, Ahmed Ibrahim, a member of the committee, said that the issue was unfortunate and was due to the "lack of understanding or appreciation for the new dimension regarding" the disbursement of the Common Fund.

Background:

Mynewsgh reported that Dan Botwe wrote a letter to President Nana Dankwa Akufo-Addo in which he strongly named Irene Naa Torshie Addo-Lartey, over what he described as her refusal to cooperate with his ministry in the equitable disbursement of Common Funds to the various MMDAs in a style which would be in the best interest of the government.

“It is instructive for His Excellency to note that this Ministry has not had the expected level of cooperation from the Office of the Administrator of the District Assemblies Common Fund.

“In the past two (2) years and three (3) months since I have been in the Ministry, efforts to get the Office of the Administrator of District Assemblies Common Fund to align with the Ministry in the strategic determination of the beneficiary Districts of such allocations has not been successful”, an unhappy Minister Botwe, noted in his letter to the President, dated Monday, July 10, 2023.

He continued: “Even more worrying is the fact that, as the Ministry responsible for the MMDAs we are not involved, engaged or consulted in any form by the Administrator of the District Assemblies Common Fund in the development of the formula proposed to Parliament. We are of the view that Government would be more efficient in the utilization of such resources if we align the decision-making process with all relevant stakeholders.”

Dan Botwe argued that his ministry, by law, has the mandate to provide coordinating and supervisory role over the activities of the MMDAs and to guide their development activities, therefore the mandate to determine which districts receive such support and special attention lies with the ministry.

BAI/OGB

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