Ho, Feb. 18, GNA - The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development is making moves to stop duplication of training and functions in the local government sector. Mr Joseph Yieleh-Chireh, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development said this at a two-day capacity building workshop for stakeholders in the sector in Ho on Thursday.

He said irrespective of the numerous capacity building activities in the Local Government Service (LGS) and Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) the service delivery of the two institutions over a decade had been disjointed and less beneficial to the decentralization system. "The perception that assemblies lack capacity persists in spite of all the efforts Ministries, Departments and Agencies as well as development partners and civil society are putting in," Mr Yieleh-Chireh said. He said the situation manifested itself in the recent decentralization review which revealed that there were widespread concerns about the abilities of the Assemblies to manage resources, deliver the expected services, provide timely and adequate feedback and generally execute local level development.

He said though the two institutions might have their strategic plans it was important that each of them was clear about its responsibilities and training needs as a means of ensuring better co-ordination between them to facilitate easy monitoring of their activities and needs assessment. Mr Francis Andan, Chairman of the Local Government Service Council, said the success of decentralization depended on the LGS and the ILGS and called for a harmonized training for the two institutions to prevent duplication of training and exercise of functions. 18 Feb. 10