Adentan residents call for transparency in development fund utilisation
Residents of Adentan in the Greater Accra Region have called on the Adentan Municipal Assembly (AdMA) to be transparent in the utilisation of the District Development Facility (DDF).
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More transparency and flow of information, according to the residents, would enable them to track and monitor the use of the fund for greater accountability.
This was made known during a DDF Municipal Level Dialogue organised by the Adentan District Citizens Monitoring Committee (DCMC), with support from SEND-GHANA and Intervention Forum (IF), two local non-governmental organisations.
The residents, who are members of the DCMC, said their participation in the utilisation of the DDF would enable them to monitor the progress of projects and prevent unnecessary delays in their implementation and execution.
DDF
The DDF was created by some of Ghana’s development partners, namely, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) and the German Development Bank (KfW), to support the Government of Ghana to undertake a wide range of investments at the district level.
Project
The dialogue series, which gave the members of the DCMC the opportunity to interact with officials of AdMA, was also used to share the findings of a project conducted by IF, with support from SEND-Ghana, on the DDF in the municipality.
The project, entitled: “Financing local development project: A look at the DDF”, was to assess the utilisation and level of citizens’ involvement in development initiatives funded by the DDF.
It focused on the DDF between 2008 and 2013.
Presenting the findings of the project, the Chief Executive Officer of IF, Ms Nora Ollenu, said it was observed that the untimely release of the government’s counterpart funding of 30 per cent for the DDF was part of the causes of the delays in executing some projects, particularly those on education and health.
The main findings, she said, showed that the number of metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) that qualified for the DDF increased from 38 per cent in 2008 to 90 per cent in 2013.
According to her, it was also identified that the facility was in arrears for the last three years.
Delays
Ms Ollenu said as of April 2013, districts which had qualified for the grant for the year had not received their funds and attributed that to the delay in counterpart funding to complement funds provided by the development partners.
The study showed that about 30 per cent of DDF projects initiated in 2013 had suffered overruns and were incomplete by April 2016 due to delays by contractors and contract variations.
She said an inventory of DDF projects at Adentan showed that the actual period for project completion exceeded expected completion periods.
She was happy that almost all the DDF projects were disability friendly.
Recommendations
The study recommended, among other things, that the MMDAs should increase monitoring of contracts and apply sanctions where there were variations.
It also urged compliance with the Disability Act as one of the key indicators for assessing the district assemblies.
During an open forum, the participants called for the erection of signboards at every project site which would indicate the source of funding, the type of project, name of contractor and supervising agency and expected date of completion to serve as a source of information to the public and assist them with their monitoring role.
They asked for more attention to be paid to the provision of educational and water facilities in the municipality.
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