The Centre for Local Governance Advocacy has called for a clarification of what it considers to be an anomaly in the allocation of the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) in the 2017 budget.
The current allocation of about GHc 1.5 billion falls short of mandatory 5% of total revenue and is below government allocations in the last 4 years, according to the Centre.
Beyond this, the Centre has also called on government to direct the funding for its 1 million per constituency policy to the DACF, as it noted that there was some lack of clarity in this regard.
A research fellow at the Centre, Edem Awusi noted to Citi News that, “Parliament is mandated to allocate at least 5 percent of revenue” but “we checked from the budget and we matched it against allocations made to the DACF and we realised that it was only 4.48 percent instead of the mandatory minimum of 5 percent.”
On the $1 million per constituency policy, Mr. Awusi said his outfit could not pinpoint “where exactly the $1 million will be channelled to because the policy is saying it’s for the constituency but we know the constituencies are not administrative units.”
“The MPs’ share of the common fund goes through the district assemblies so the question we are asking now is, is government channelling that 1 million to the district assemblies because there is no clear is not clear indication or information as to who that money will be channelled to.”
“We are saying that government should come clear and we are actually advocating that the money be channelled to the district assembly. We believe that it will help development and even help the assemblies to live up to their mandate.”
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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana
