The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Ho Central, Benjamin Kpodo says the delay in releasing the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) to the various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies is hampering development at the local level.
According to the MP, the Ministry of Finance is instead using funds meant for the assemblies to support central government expenditure.
Speaking to Citi News, the NDC MP said the Ministry of Finance owes the MMDAs an amount of GH₵142 million which should have been paid earlier this year.
“The Ministry is not giving accurate figures as to how much has been collected as revenue. Those are the problems of the District Assemblies Common Fund. We suspect that they are using it for central government expenditure. They don’t want to release the money to the District Assemblies Common Fund. So, they are owing us GHS142 million in respect of the first quarter of 2018 which should have been paid last year or earlier this year. They don’t want to release the money,” the MP complained.
Payment of Funds
Prior to the 2020 budget presentation, the Minority stated that they will stay away from the presentation and its approval methods if the government fails to issue the outstanding portions of the District Assemblies Common Fund for this year.
They said only funds for the first quarter have been released to the MMDAs and this is stalling development projects and programmes across the country.
On March 28, 2017, Parliament passed the Earmarked Funds Capping and Realignment Act, 2017 (Act 947).
The Act states that the earmarked funds for each financial year should be equivalent to 25 percent of revenue.
Although the government decided to cap funds allocated to the DACF, the Supreme Court described the move as unconstitutional.
The Minister of Finance, Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta, however, explained that the capping arrangement had become necessary to remove the stringencies in public expenditure.
