Government has released GHC 260 million into the District Assembly Common Fund for the second quarter of 2014.
[contextly_sidebar id=”wioZPaWGCYUxp9L8hurSM2N3HHTKv1px”]The amount has been disbursed to Districts, Municipalities and Metropolis across the country.
The District Assemblies’ Common Fund was created under section 252 of the 1992 constitution of Ghana.
It is a minimum of 7.5% of the national revenue which has been set aside to be distributed to all District Assemblies in Ghana.
The fund is a Development Fund facilitates the use of the nation’s resources nationwide to the benefit of every citizens.
The Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Local Government and Rural Development, Dominic Azumah who disclosed the release of the funds to Citi News said although there was a delay, government has performed better than in previous years.
He admitted that the funds have come very, very late, adding that, “at a point, we almost had about three quarters in arrears and once we were in the third quarter or the fourth quarter, we owed the whole three quarters.”
Mr. Azumah mentioned that between September and October 2014, the various District Assemblies were paid their funds for the first quarter “and then it took us about November, December and in January, they paid the second quarter.”
He acknowledged that government’s delay in releasing the funds was “certainly not good enough because we all understood the problem.
According to him, the Finance Ministry explained that it was facing some challenges which forced the Assemblies to manage with their internally generated funds while waiting for the District Assemblies Common fund to be released.
“Even though it’s very late, I think that it has helped most of the Assemblies to be able to plan their development programmes,” he said.
Mr. Azumah expressed the hope that the payment for the third quarter will be made in the shortest possible time to help the various Assemblies undertake their developmental projects.
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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