Aplaku, (GAR), Oct. 15, GNA - Civil servants of at least six ministries including Food and Agriculture, Local Government and Rural Development, Roads and Highways and Health, would be affected in the on-going decoupling exercise.

Under the exercise, some of the functions of these ministries would be transferred to the District Assemblies under the umbrella of the Local Government Service (LGS).

About 80 per cent of civil servants would be sent to LGS as public servants, Nana Boachie-Danquah, Lecturer, University of Ghana Business School said.

Nana Buachie-Danquah, who is also the former chairman of the Local Government Service Council, said 28,000 workers in the civil service had been identified to be transferred to the LGS after the Legislative Instrument (LI) was passed.

Speaking at a meeting between the LGS Council and the Secretariat at Aplaku in the Ga South Municipality, Nana Buachie-Danquah said the LI was sent to Parliament but was returned for some modifications. He promised that within the next two or three weeks it would be passed to pave way for the transfers.

He said the LI was very crucial to transfer staff to composite departments of the District Assemblies.

Fortunately, most of the workers to be affected were already in the districts, which would make the transition easier and appealed to the media to educate the public on the exercise to make it a success. Nana Buachie-Danquah said with the passage of the legislative Instrument, District Chief Executives would be encouraged to hold regular consultative and coordinating meetings with heads and staff of decentralized departments to elicit their willingness to belong to the LGS. "DCES are also encouraged to establish consultative and cooperative working relationship with other services especially the Health, Education and Forestry Services as provided in Act 2003, Act 656," he added. He therefore stressed the need to sustain political leadership and direction for the implementation of the roadmap for the running of the service.

Nana Buachie-Danquah also called for sustained sensitization and publicity programmes by the council to elicit acceptance and support of the staff of the new service for the decentralization process.