The House Minority is requesting that Ken Ofori-Atta, the Finance Minister, promptly provide money for the District Assembly Common Fund.
The Minority asserts that the government is required to make payments to areas due to the Common Fund as of 2018.
At a news briefing, Minority Chip Whip Kwame Agbodza said that some district assemblies’ functions had been suspended due to the fund’s non-payment.
It is evident that the common fund has been unable to receive payments of more than 6.2 billion Ghana cedis (GH6.2 billion) since 2018. This is money owed in accordance with Constitutional Article 252(2). Government cannot choose whether to pay the fund or not.
“The money has been collected in terms of taxes; it is unlawful for the minister of finance Ken Ofori-Atta to pay those sums of money to the assemblies,” he emphasized. It indicates that many assemblies have employees who show up for work but do nothing. In essence, they gather around the table and huddle. The assemblies cannot perform the tasks that are needed of them as a result.
Edwin Nii Lantey Vanderpuye, the ranking member of the Local Government and Rural Development Committee of Parliament, claimed that the finance minister had declined to appear before the committee in order to discuss the problem of common fund disbursement.
The speaker of the house, Alban Bagbin, decided that the ministry of finance should appear before the joint committee of finance and local government to ensure that these concerns are resolved: “We have repeatedly tried, we have made that input on the floor of the house.”
“At the local government level, we have twice written to the finance ministry inviting them to come meet with us so that we can furnish the house with the intentions of the ministry of finance to make sure that they abide by the principles enshrined in the constitution,” he said. That hasn’t been done up until now, according to Nii Lantey Vanderpuye.
