A former Presiding Member of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), Nana Kofi Senya, has challenged the establishment of the Members of Parliament (MPs) Common Fund, saying the concept is not grounded in law but simply a creation of Parliament itself. He has consequently called for it to be scrapped until it is established in proper legislation.
He argues that the idea of the creation of the MPs Common Fund was the architect of the then Majority and Minority leaders in 1997 during the second Parliament of the Fourth Republic.
Article 252, clauses II and V of the Constitution mandate Parliament to allocate funds not less than five per cent to metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) and also to prescribe the functions and tenure of the common fund administrator.
"There is no constitutional provisions for MPs Common Fund," he said.
Quoting extensively from a lecture delivered by former local government minister, Prof. Kwamena Ahwoi, Nana Senya said the decision to allocate part of the fund to MPs in 1997 was as a result of demands from the MPs themselves for financial assistance to undertake development projects.
"Perhaps it was to remove the incidents of district chief executives bluffing the MPs with their fund," he said.
Leadership
He alleged that the leadership of the two sides of Parliament requested that part of the District Assembly Common Fund be given to the legislators or they might not approve the formula for the sharing of the fund.
Nana Senya said by that creation, MPs now became agents for development in their various districts and by so doing disenfranchised the MMDAs and for that matter the assembly members.
He said Article 240 (2) and sub clauses A, B, C, mandated the legislators to enact appropriate laws to ensure that functions, power, responsibilities and resources were at all times transferred from the central government to the local government units, and to ensure probity, transparency and accountability at the MMDAs.
"Unfortunately, the legislators are behaving contrary," he added.
Structures
Touching on the entire local government system and need for its realignment, Nana Senya said after practising local governance and for that matter decentralisation in Ghana for 31 years, one would expect better strides to have been made to ensure social accountability and development.
He said rather it had become very apparent that the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development and the legislators have not contributed enough to the development of local governance and decentralisation at the grassroots.
Constitution
The former presiding member said the framers of the 1992 Constitution and the Local Government Act, Act 462 of 1993, now amended to Act 936, 2016, were so magnanimous to Ghanaians and, therefore, ensured clauses that would deepen democracy, decentralisation, holistic development and social accountability, where the people shall govern themselves through the structures at the sub national government level without or with less political interference.
"I am alarmed at the rate at which the local government system and decentralisation are folding up at the whims and caprices of the Local Government and Rural Development Ministry and the legislators,” he said.
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