BE ASSERTIVE, DCE TELLS UNIT C'TTEE MEMBERS (PAGE 16, JAN 15, 2010)

UNIT committee and area council members of district assemblies have been urged to be assertive in order to hold the assemblies accountable to the people.
The District Chief Executive for Shama, Ms Emelia Arthur, who made the call at a training programme organised for the unit committee and council members, said area council members played an important role in the country’s decentralisation process.
She said without them, the assembly would not effectively liaise with people in the electoral areas.
The assembly, she said, needed active unit committee and area council members to ensure that people in the communities were always updated on what the assembly was doing.
She said the training was to ensure that council members acquainted themselves with their roles and responsibilities.
The DCE said under the Local Government Act 1993 (Act 462) and Legislative Instrument (LI) 1614, district assemblies were required to initiate and implement their programmes through the area councils.
That, she said, would enable the councils to play watchful roles and serve as mini governments at the local level.
Ms Arthur, therefore, asked the members to be alive to their responsibilities to keep records of all rateable persons and properties, as well as assist the assembly to collect more revenue.
The DCE noted that an important area of the unit committee system was the monitoring and inspection of government projects in communities to ensure accountability and transparency.
The committees and the area councils also had the powers to take lawful steps to abate any nuisance to ensure that the right things were done.
“I want you to know that the non-function of the area councils 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 added.
She said it was, therefore, important to reverse the unfortunate situation through collaboration with the relevant stakeholders when the unit committee and area council members were successfully inaugurated.
The District Planning Officer, Mr Isaac B. Ankomah, said the training programme was very important, as most of the members were not aware of the powers they had.
Development issues, he said, needed to be discussed and the people in the communities made aware of what was happening at the assembly level.
He said it was within the functions of the area councils to organise the people in their areas with relevant stakeholders to discuss development issues and make suggestions to the assembly.
The participants were taken through the formulation and preparation of community action plans, area action plans, project implementation, monitoring and evaluation, resource identification for development, record keeping, team building, among others.