Community members are not difficult, involve them in your planning- Northern region MMDAs told.
Northern Regional Economic Planning Officer, Alhaji Inusah Abukari has advised Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to involve community members in their planning activities.
He said involvement of community members by MMDAs will help build trust between the assemblies and the citizens. He stated that it is not true that community members are difficult to carry along in planning and urged all MMDAs to pay attention to community’s priority needs.
He explained that the direct principles of state policy, section 35 in the 1992 constitution emphasized the need for MMDAs to ensure that all citizens take part in decision making in Ghana from planning to execution.
Under the local government service, Alhaji Inusah said there is six service delivery standards which includes accountability, transparency, participation, professionalism, client focus and effective and efficiency.
Failure by MMDAs to follow these, he explained meant that services to be provided will not be the right service. Citizens he added have the right to demand for the right thing to be done.
The MMDAs, economic the regional planer said are mandated to include community members, NGOS, CSOs and traditional authorities’ representatives to be part of monitory and evaluation of projects.
He was speaking at a day regional stakeholders’ engagement in Tamale organized by Democracy International and Norsaac with funding partners USAID.
It brought together heads of decentralized department, members of northern youth parliament and members of building contractors associations.
He assured that, both the assemblies and at the regional coordinating council level maximum support to the implementation of Performance Accountability Activity (PAA), five years program because it is a constitutional right of the community members.
Sometimes we turn to say that community members do not want change and we turn to look at their attitudes but when it comes to our side, we rather say that they do not want change, Alhaji Inusah noted.
He continued; We turn to say community members are difficult when we have not even approach them, we just assumed without assessing to know if they are, he asserted.