Former President John Dramani Mahama has promised to increase the district assembly common fund from the current 5% to 7% if he wins the 2024 elections.
Mr. Mahama, who is the presidential candidate of the opposition National Democratic Congress, made the promise in Bole after casting his vote in today’s district assembly elections.
The former President stated that this would be among the measures his government would take to deepen local governance.
“If God smiles on us, and we win the 2024 elections, we are going to take decentralization seriously, the rest of the ministries seriously, and the rest of the MMDAs that are still centralized. We are going to complete the decentralization so that we truly hand over power to the people at the local government level. Until we get our decentralization right, Ghana is not going to go anywhere, and so we are going to take it seriously.”
“We are going to make sure that District Common Fund disbursement increases from 5% to 7%, as enforced in 2016, and that the District Assemblies Common Fund is going to be regular so that districts can take advantage of it to increase the pace of their development. So, for those who haven’t voted, please go to the polling stations and select your assembly members,” Mr. Mahama said.
Mr. Mahama also called on the Electoral Commission of Ghana to take measures to prevent the incidents of malfunctioning equipment and delayed starts witnessed in the district assembly elections from recurring in the 2024 General elections.
According to Mr. Mahama, a repeat of these incidents could cause chaos in 2024 if they occur again.
