By Abraham Donkor.
To help improve upon service delivery at the local governance level, the government has been monitoring the performance and outcomes of assessments relating to the implementation of the Local Government Service Performance Contract.
This was the crux of this year’s Awards ceremony for the Best Regional Coordinating Councils and Municipal Metropolitan and District Assemblies, held in Accra. The Volta Regional Coordinating Council was adjudged the Best Regional Coordinating Council with Savannah and Bono East RCC placing 2nd and 3rd positions.
Section 54 (f) and (g) of the Local Governance Act, 2016 (Act 936) mandates the Local Government Service Council to set performance standards within which the District Assemblies and Regional Coordinating Councils shall perform their functions and discharge their duties. Consequently, a comprehensive Performance Management System was developed in the year 2015, to improve the performance of staff and teams in the service. Head of the Local Government Service, Dr. Nana Ato Arthur explained that the performance assessment is critical to the successful running of the local governance architecture.
The Chief of Staff, Madam Akosua Frema, tasked the Assemblies to broaden their horizon in the provision of services to the citizenry to impact on their attitudes and responsiveness. She charged stakeholders in the Local Government Service to enhance productivity, increase job satisfaction and decentralised local governance across the country.
On the outcome of the assessment of the implementation of the 2020 Performance Contract, 10 out of 260 MMDAs and 3 out of the 16 Regional Coordinating Councils in the country were presented with awards for their outstanding performances.
For the RCCs category, the Volta Regional Coordinating Regional Council took the 1st position, followed by the Savannah and Bono East Regional Coordinating Councils respectively.
The assessment of the 2020 Performance Contracts implementation across the 16 RCCs and 260 MMDAs was funded by the Government of Ghana with support from UNICEF and USAID.
