Ken Ofori Atta has made the District Assemblies Common Fund impotent – Minority Group

The Minority group in parliament has accused the Minister of Finance Ken Ofori Atta of deliberately breaching Article 252(2)(3) of the 1992 Constitution without recourse to its ramifications on the decentralization and development at the local governance system.

According to the MPs, the government through the Finance Ministry has persistently done everything possible to deprive the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) of the needed funds for the discharge of its constitutionally mandated duties. They say, the amounts due the DACF have been under-provided and have been in arrears for 2017 and 2018.

They however noted that “the debts were partly settled in 2020 with monies borrowed during the COVID-19 intervention period amounting to GHc 144 Million.

Article 252 (1) (2) (3)of the 1992 Constitution provides that there shall be a fund to be known as the District Assemblies Common Fund and subject to the provisions of this Constitution, Parliament shall make provision for the allocation of not less than five percent of the total revenues of Ghana to the District Assemblies for development, and the amount shall be paid into the District Assemblies Common Fund in quarterly installments. It said the money accruing to the District Assemblies Common Fund shall be distributed among all the District Assemblies on the basis of a formula approved by Parliament.

But at a press briefing in Parliament on October 21, at the Parliament House in Accra ostensibly to highlight and reveal to Ghanaians “the general mal-functional status of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF)”, a member of the Minority Benjamin Kpodo, suspected “misapplication of the Constitutionally created fund by the government of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.

“Indeed the DACF is simply not working today, having been rendered impotent. The monies due to the Fund have not been given to the Fund to enable it to carry out its mandate as abundantly outlined by the Constitution and the relevant Act,” he added.

The MPs indicted the Ministry of Finance for arbitrarily determining that the amount due to the DACF for one quarter of the year is not due until after the end of the next quarter.

“For instance, the first quarter of the year ends in March; but monies for the Common Fund will only be due after the end of the second quarter in June.

The question is does it take three months to determine what revenue was realized in a particular quarter, especially in these days of computer technology? Again we see this as a ploy to retain the monies due to the DACF at the center.

“The Ministry of Finance has failed to release funds to the DACF for several quarters over 2020 — 2021. This is a clear violation of the 1992 constitution, Article 252 (2). Indeed, payments have not been made by quarterly installments,” he stated.

They also revealed that “the Ministry of Finance is very heavily indebted to the DACF. The amount has run to about two billion Ghana Cedis (GHS2, 000,000.00+) made up with: 2019 — GHS700 Million (per the Auditor-General’s report), 2020 — GHS587 Million 2021 – GHS884Million (Estimates for only 1st and 2nd Quarters).

“Curiously a release letter issued by the Ministry of Finance indicated an amount of GHS434, 587,416.00 for the fourth quarter of 2020; this amount was lower by GHS210, 301,339 than the amount computed by the same Ministry of Finance by which the allocation should have been GHS644, 888,755.00. During reconciliations, the Chief Director of the Ministry stated that the Ministry did not release the full amount because that would have exceeded the legally appropriated allocation to the DACF”.

By Edzorna Francis Mensah