Ho, July 7, GNA - Mr Joseph Amenowode, Volta Regional Minister, on Tuesday expressed disappointment at the poor management and supervision of municipal and district assemblies in the region. He said that had resulted in "financial and administrative laxities and improprieties".

Mr Amenowode was addressing a two-day management meeting of the core staff of the assemblies in the Region in Ho. "Monitoring Reports on the general performance of the districts on the whole have not been encouraging," Mr Amemowode stated. Municipal and District Chief Executives, District Coordinating Directors, District Finance Officers, Planning, Budget and Works Officers from across the region were at the meeting, which the Minister said was the first review meeting ever in the Region.

Mr Amenowode listed late submission of financial reports, minutes of meetings and follow up actions, and response to correspondence and request for information and audit queries as some of the grey areas. He reminded those officers that, they were the nation's development agents in the district, carrying out the government's policies to raise living standards of the people, and they should not be seen to be dissipating the resources of the districts.

He warned that government "would not tolerate any attempt advertently or inadvertently to derail its good intensions." "It grieves me to come to terms with the failure of Ketu-South, South-Dayi and Adaklu-Anyigbe to access the Functional Organizational Assessment Tool (FOAT) Facility for 2009. "This is a big loss not only to those districts, but to the good people of the region," Amenowode lamented. FOAT is a programme that links performance assessment to capacity building support.

Mr Amenowode implored the officers to remember that the "government of the day that you represent at the local levels, has the mandate and responsibility to improve the welfare of the good people of Ghana, and it shall be assessed at end of its four-year term". The meeting would hear and discuss the Chief Local Government Inspector's Report on the Financial Performance of the Municipal/District Assemblies and status report on the 2010 Medium Term Development Programme (MTDP) by Assemblies among others. 7 July 10