Regional News of Wednesday, 1 July 2015

Source: GNA

Staff of assembly schooled on mainstreaming of finances

A five-member consultancy team under the offices of the Ministry of Finance to study fiscal decentralisation financing project, has schooled the staff of the education and health sectors of the Awutu-Senya East Municipal Assembly.

Professor Kwamina Awoyie, the lead consultant of the group took the staff through the institutional arraignment of the project at a meeting held at Kasoa in the Central Region.

He said the project is a policy decision that has been taken by the government to make the local directorates of Ghana Health Service and the Ministry of Education to be part of the departments of the municipal and district assemblies.

It is a World Bank project and aimed at finding out the financial gap between the health and education sectors as well as looking at how to integrate them into mainstream of the local assemblies.

It is also to know how their monies are channel to them and to collect staff views, suggestions and challenges for the way forward.

Prof Awoyie said the assemblies are the highest decision making body of the districts hence the need to know how they share their budget allocations.

This was reason the World Bank is sponsoring the project to ensure that the assemblies are on top of affairs of all departments and institutions under them per the decentralisation policy, for smooth running of administration to improve the livelihood of the people, he said

Dr Nuhu Adams, Awutu-Senya East Municipal Chief Executive, said the project is in the right direct and it would go a long way to help the assembly control its finances and expenditure.