Collective effort is needed to do away with the bottlenecks that tend to hinder the effective operations of assemblies and zonal councils.
It is imperative more efforts are made to promote the citizenry participation and inclusion in service delivery in the local governance process.
Samuel Ayertey, the Deputy Eastern Regional Minister, made the call at a panel discussion on enhancing the performance of assemblies, zonal councils and inclusion of local communities in service delivery.
It was organised by 4-H Ghana with funding from Star-Ghana and the New Juaben South Municipal Assembly as implementing partner intended to enhance the interface between communities in the local government sub-structures, duty bearers and promote active participation of marginalised groups in local governance.
The project is being implemented in four zonal councils in the New Juaben South Municipal area including Zongo, Anlo Town l, Sukowa and Adweso Zonal Councils and will also ensure satisfactory service delivery, increase in revenue mobilisation as well as increase in beneficiaries of the disability fund.
When completed, it will help increase participation of excluded and vulnerable people including the youth, women and People with Disabilities (PWD’s) in the local governing process.
Mr Ayertey explained that, “as a country, we cannot effectively develop and address our local community needs if we do not adhere to tenets of the decentralisation and make it practicable.
“The assemblies are overburdened with trivial issues, because the sub-structures of the local government system are not functioning as required, if the assemblies are adequately resourced to execute their roles and responsibilities successfully, there will be significant development in the communities,” Mr Ayertey assured.
The New Juaben South Municipal Chief Executive, Isaac Apaw-Gyasi, observed that since the establishment of the zonal councils, they had played significant roles in the governance of the state at the grassroot level.
“Despite the enormous roles the zonal councils play in governance at the local level, they are faced with enormous challenges and the performance of zonal councils in the New Juaben South is very abysmal due to such challenges.
“It will take conscientious efforts by all major stakeholders to revamp and build the zonal councils to ensure that they were effective and efficient in helping to promote effective service delivery,” Mr Apaw-Gyasi noted. -GNA
