The collaboration with representatives from the various government agencies and media practitioners among others was to build a consensus on effective ways of implementing the DDF.

The DDF, which was a support funding from development partners, was to complement the 7.5 per cent financial resources to the District Assemblies Common Fund to help close the significant fiscal gap since the assemblies are unable to raise sufficient Internally Generated Funds (IGF) for their projects.

Mr George Osei-Bimpeh, the Country Director of SEND-Ghana, said the project, with support from “Making all Voices Count”  was targeted at improving service delivery to marginalised and vulnerable groups in 30 districts in the Greater Accra, Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions through the prudent utilisation of the DDF.

He, however, explained that access to the DDF was determined by performance after an annual assessment of each Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assembly (MMDA) using the Functional and Organisational Assessment Tool (FOAT).

He said the FOAT assesses performance of MMDAs in relation to their compliance with government’s policies, rules and regulations, and procedures in carrying out their mandated functions.

Indicators for assessment were focused on thematic areas such as planning, budgeting, finance, management and organisation, transparency and accountability as well as fiscal capacity, procurement, financial management and relationship with sub-district structures.

Mr Adamu Mukaila, the Project Lead, said at the time of the monitoring DDF was in arrears for three years and districts which qualified for the grants in 2013 did not receive it until April 2016, which was attributed to government’s delay in raising counterpart funding.

He said it was also noted that FOAT for 2014 was undertaken in 2016, indicating a two-year time lag while about 30 per cent of DDF projects initiated in 2013 had suffered an overrun and were incomplete by April 2016.

Mr Mukaila said citizen’s knowledge of DDF was very low even among Unit Committee members, majority of whom had no knowledge of funds received by the assemblies, resulting in the low level of community participation at all levels of project design and implementation.

Mr Mukaila said based on the findings a number of recommendations have been made including FOAT to be made within six months after each fiscal year, and the indicators reviewed to include direct citizens’ feedback, unlike the current framework which sought such information from assemblies instead of citizens.

He said MMDAs were also to increase monitoring of contractors and apply sanctions where there were violations and also insist that they mounted signboards and placards indicating sources of funding boldly labelled on all projects.

Nana Agyekum Dwamena, the Chairman of the Technical Committee, said the delayed disbursements of funds to the MMDAs remained a worrying challenge as it affected their capacity dimensions.

He called for a structure for the release of such facility by government to streamline activities at the local governance level. He, however, encouraged MMDAs to be gender sensitive in their local revenue collection and invest monies into areas that could yield rational incomes whilst calling for stringent societal monitoring of community and district projects for the effective development of their communities.

Present to answer questions during an open forum were Mr Alhassan Amidu, the Head of Inspectorate at the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Joseph Antwi, the Head of Fiscal Decentralisation, Ministry of Finance and Mr George Gyapani Ackah, the Planning Officer at the Greater Accra Regional Co-ordinating Council.