Story: Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu, Shama
Unit committees and area council members of district assemblies have been urged to be assertive in order to hold assemblies accountable to the people.
The District Chief Executive of the Shama District Assembly, Ms Emelia Arthur, who made the call at training organised for the members in the district said area council members played an important role in the country’s decentralization process of the country.
She said without them, the assembly would not effectively liaise with people in their electoral areas.
The assembly, she said, therefore, need active unit committee and area council members to ensure that the people at the community were always updated on what the assembly was doing.
She said the training organised by the assembly was to ensure that council members acquaint themselves with their roles and responsibilities after their long break.
The DCE said under the Local Government Act 1993 (Act 462) and LI 1614, district assemblies were required to initiate and implement their programmes through the area councils.
This she said would enable council play watchful role and serve as a mini government at the local level as their role was to enumerate and keep records of all ratable persons and properties as well as assist the assembly to collect more revenue.
She said through that the area council members could be mobilize people, also initiate and implement self help and development projects with the help of the assembly to speed development.
Ms Arthur said one of the important areas of these important units of the local level governance was to monitoring and inspection of government projects in communities to ensure accountability and transparency.
The unit committee and area council also had the powers to take all lawful steps to abate any nuisance to ensure that the right things were done.
The DCE said development had always been a collaborative effort; therefore, unit committee formed a very important bridge between traditional authorities to mobilize resources to support community projects and also organize people for communal activities.
“I want to you to know that the non function of the area council had adversely affected the effective delivery of the assembly to the extent of denying the people access to participate in decisions that affect their own lives.”
She said it was, therefore, important to reverse the unfortunate situation through the collaboration with relevant stakeholders when the unit committee and area council members were successfully inaugurated.
She therefore entreated them to pay attention to the issues that would be discussed at the training to ensure that they acquired the needed skills to support the assembly at community level.
The District Planning Officer for the district, Mr Isaac B. Ankomah urged the participants assert the powers vested in them to ensure that they contributed to the development of the district.
He said the training programme was very important as most of the members are not aware of the powers they had and with the long break since 2004 when the ceased to function.
Development issues he said need to be discussed and the people in the communities made aware of what was happening at the assembly.
He said it was within the functions of the area councils to organize the people in their areas with relevant stakeholders to discuss development issues and make suggestions to the assembly.
He said through that they could organize voluntary fund raising to support projects with the help of the assembly, “therefore, if this important arm of the local governance is not in place it would be difficult to reach the people at all levels.
The participants were taking through the formulation and preparation of community action plan, area action plans, project implementation, monitoring and evaluation, resource identification for development, record keeping and team building among others.
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