Local government act to be amended - Effah-Dartey

Kumasi (Ashanti Region) 09 April 2002 --The Local Government Law, Act 462 is to be amended to correct identified weaknesses in the country's decentralisation programme, Captain Nkrabea Effah-Dartey (rtd), Deputy Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, has announced.

The Ministry was in the process of going to Parliament to effect the necessary amendments, Captain Effah-Dartey said at the opening of a two-day training workshop for members of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), in Kumasi, on Monday. Organised by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, it is aimed at equipping the assembly members with the skills to effectively perform their job.

The Deputy Minister said it was a matter of deep concern that the legislation as it was now, made the sub-metropolitan and town councils hanging institutions, as people were not elected directly into any of them. Captain Effah-Dartey noted that if the sub-structures of the assemblies were effective on the ground, the crave for creation of new districts would have abated.

Besides, there would be remarkable improvement in the revenue generation of the assemblies, he said, pointing out that if all those sub-structures work as they should, he saw no reason why the KMA for example, should not be able to raise not less than 500 million cedis every month. The Deputy Minister was unhappy about the fact that not one of the 17 town councils in Accra and the 24 in Kumasi, was yet working.