She said "institutional leaders and their staff now focus vital energies on those areas that impact more on the functionality and growth of their entities. The contracts have brought leaders to greater awareness of the place of well-motivated staff in attaining set goals of their entities."

The Minister noted that performance agreements had come to stay in public service as a means of eliciting accountability from duty bearers and such agreements had become the hallmark of the entire performance management system because it tied in the performance of all staff with those of leadership.

Madam Abayage who was speaking at the signing ceremony of the 2020 performance agreements between MMDCEs and MMDCDs in Bolgatanga at the weekend, stated that "performance contracts has not been without constraints."

She observed that the accompanying resources to facilitate work had not always matched with planned activities. "There is also the challenge of peculiarities of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) which make the realization of some universal result areas extremely difficult," she added.

She said such matters were receiving due attention as the documents continued to undergo periodic reviews to incorporate genuine proposals, and encouraged all MMDAs to rise above the challenges and make innovate plans  that would meet the needs of citizens under their respective jurisdictions.

The Minister reminded the Municipal and District Chief Executives (MDCEs) and their Directors that they had a social contract with their people which demanded that they marshaled all competencies to achieve the desired results.

She told them that with suitable management skills, they were capable of raising the necessary resources to meet planned programmes and perform well with the little resources they had.

Alhaji Mohamadu Azonko, the Upper East Regional Coordinating Director, said performance management in public service had moved from just appraisal assessment to a conscious and continuous planning, implementation, monitoring, review and evaluation of performance of staff to inform rewards and punishment.

He indicated that performance contract since its inception had consisted of seven thematic areas namely; general administration, human resource management, financial management and reporting, infrastructure, social services delivery, economic development, environmental and sanitation management.

He said every action of the MMDAs was needed to fulfill the contracts, including "picking of mails and timely responses to requests for information from MMDAs, adherence to chain of command in addressing genuine concerns, inadequate attention to capacity building of staff."

Mr Williams Aduum, the Kassena Nankana Municipal Chief Executive, who is also the Dean of the MDCEs called on his colleagues to cooperate effectively to implement the contract agreement to the latter, and gave the assurance that the MDCEs would work to achieve results.

In the same vein, Alhaji Mahammed Issahaku, the Bawku Municipal Coordinating Director gave the assurance that his colleagues would work diligently to ensure the implementation of the performance agreements.