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Regional Ministers and Co-ordinating Directors who fall short of new performance targets will face sanctions, including removal from office, Head of Local Government Service, Dr Callistus Mahama has warned.

The Ministers and their Directors, who signed performance contracts in Accra last Friday, will be required to, among others, adhere to strict financial management standards, human resource management principles, as well as customer service initiatives. 

The concept, which is the brainchild of the Local Government Service (LGS) and the Public Services Commission, has the objective of helping to achieve Ghana’s developmental goals and improve livelihoods at the local level.

The Ministers and Directors are also required to sign similar contracts with the heads of the 17 decentralised departments at the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs).

 Dr Mahama hoped that the setting of performance targets would ensure that Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives and head of institutions discharge their duties effectively and efficiently.

“The relevance of this concept is to monitor, evaluate and assess the performance of Ministers to ensure prudent utilisation of resources,” he pointed out.

The contract starts from January 1 to December 31, 2015 and the performance would be assessed and reviewed quarterly to reward performing Ministers and sanction non-performing ones.

 Executive Director of Public Service Commission, Mrs Bridget Katsriku recalled how similar initiatives had failed to produce the desired results, adding that “bad leadership is to blame for the failure of those initiatives.”

She called for effective co-operation between Ministers and Co-ordinating Directors to guarantee fruitful results and further appealed to citizens to hold public officers accountable.

Mrs Katsriku announced that her outfit will spearhead an independent audit exercise to clean the payroll since, according to her, there were increasing concerns about ghost names and the harm that was causing the country.

“Beginning in February this year, the service seeks to ensure procedural contractual agreement to prevent compromising the system by public officials.”

Mrs Katsriku said the exercise would be implemented on the Ghana Integrated Financial Management System (GIFMIS), an information technology system that put together financial statements of government revenue, budget and payroll system, and human resource management.

 Alhaji Amin Amidu Sulemana, Upper West Regional Ministers on behalf of the Ministers, said the signing marks a milestone on the road to improving performance in the Local Government System “as we make a new paradigm shift from the old ways of doing things.”

He noted that since the passage of Act 462 of 1993, which guides the operationalisation of the Local Government System, a lot has been achieved by bringing governance to the doorsteps of the people.

Alhaji Sulemana, who is also the Dean of the Regional Ministers and Member of Parliament for Sissala West, said the core mandate of the RCCs is monitoring, co-ordinating and evaluating the work of the MMDAs and other agencies, and the Regional Ministers are to supervise and ensure that these roles are carried out to the letter.

 He expressed the hope that the performance agreement would guide management to set targets and produce results within given time frames.

“The system will create accountability to the … public through results-based approach, and the document has set the benchmark for all actors in the system to follow. It is the commitment of this government to whip up enthusiasm and effectively make meaning to local governance in the country.”