Kumasi — Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) have been reminded on the need to show active participation in the formulation and implementation of the national budget.

According to the Head of Budget Development Planning at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP), Ms. Eva Mends, the attitude of many MMDAs towards the formulation and implementation of the national budget leaves much to be desired.

However, the provisions in the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) Act 480 demand a bottom-up approach to development planning through stakeholder public meetings for community prioritization of development but this has either not been adhered to or short changed by District Assemblies.

If the attitude by the MMDAs as described by the Head of Budget Planning is anything to go by then it is no wonder that most Assemblies are unable to get a fair share of development since all they are interested in is the meager District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) allocations made to them.

Speaking at a recent workshop organized by Public Agenda with sponsorship from Support for Decentralization Reforms Programme of GTZ, Ms. Mends disclosed that, to forestall this occurrence, the Finance Ministry has taken several initiatives such as the training of the various MMDAs' staff to help them appreciate the budgetary process.

In her view, if MMDAs express more interest in the process, it would afford central government the opportunity to better appreciate the numerous challenges in the districts and find the appropriate solutions.

Ms. Mends further urged stakeholders to be more proactive by presenting inputs for government to consider during the preparation of the budget as is done by other interest groups.

Similarly, in order for MMDAs to show more interest in the budgetary process, government through its donor partners have taken steps such as the rolling out of Composite Budgeting thereby ensuring that MMDAs prepare their own budgets before submitting them to Central government, and institutions such as the Functional Organizational Assessment Tool (FOAT) under the District Development Fund (DDF) and the GTZ and Good Governance programme.

A Local Governance Expert and Assembly Member for Asante Akim North Municipal Assembly, Hon. George Kyei-Baffour, said some of the roles and responsibilities of Assembly Members that enjoin them to consult stakeholders have either not been performed or at best abysmally handled including issues relating to budget inputs.

He said that at the MMDAs level, ratepayers constitute major players in mobilizing resources for development but the expected interaction with such critical partners is not a prominent feature in the budgetary process of MMDAs.

He referred to Section 16(1)(d) of Act 462 which enjoins Assembly Members to meet electorates before each meeting of the Assembly to discuss issues to enable them make inputs into deliberations which will reflect the views of stakeholders.

A lecturer at the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS), Mr. Eric Oduro Osae, in a presentation, revealed that the top-down approach to accountability had proved very unsuccessful, most especially in areas where the populace is largely ignorant about their rights and does not even know how to exact the required accountability from the MMDAs.

He reminded MMDAs to see themselves as an entity and therefore good corporate governance practices require managers to remain accountable to the Assembly as a House.