The Head of Local Government Service, Dr Nana Ato Arthur, has warned staff of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to desist from using official working hours to post selfies and chat on social media.
“You come to the office and even though you have been assigned work to do, you are always on your phone doing social media. The selfies must stop. There is time for everything. Let us have time for the office work,” he admonished.
Dr Ato Arthur gave the caution at the Ga South Municipal Assembly (GSMA) where he joined the staff, assemblymen, traditional rulers and residents of the area to mark the first-anniversary celebration of the creation of the assembly.
About Ga South Assembly
A year ago on March 26, 2018, the GSMA, which was one of the newly created assemblies in the Greater Accra Region was established under the Legislative Instrument (LI) 2316 with Ngleshie Amanfro as the municipal capital.Advertisement
The assembly, which was carved from the then Ga South Municipal Assembly at Weija, has as its mission to provide an effective and efficient service to ensure quality and dignified life for all citizens and businesses through balanced and excellent delivery of socio-economic policies within the context of good local governance.
Positive strides
While commending the assembly for the positives made since its establishment, Dr Ato Arthur again cautioned staff of MMDAs to desist from the practice of leaking official documents to the public.
Describing the act as unethical, he asked that the taking of pictures of official documents and posting them on social media should be a thing of the past.
“You need to respect the codes of conduct and codes of ethics of the service. You need to remain professional,” he emphasised.
Charge to assemblies and staff
For his part, a Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Kwesi Adjei Boateng, urged public servants to adhere to bye-laws, rules, procedures and policies in order to avert the negative perception people have about the public service.
He commended the assembly for the progress made since its establishment, adding that they should involve the people in the community in its development process.
For that reason, he asked the assemblies to resource assembly members to be able to organise durbars to seek the views of the community members.
“The people in the community should be able to tell assembly members what their problems are for them to be transmitted to the assembly. That way, when we do the medium-term development plan, it will be informed by the collective choices of the people so that when we deliver them, the people will see the assembly as delivering on development,” he explained.
Achievements of Ga South Assembly
Touching on the achievements of the assembly during the first year of its establishment, the Municipal Chief Executive, Mr Joseph Nyarni Stephen, said the GSMA had become a centre of excellence among the leading MMDAs in the country today, and as such many assemblies and institutions had travelled far and near to understudy their systems.
“They were simply surprised at how we have effectively used the Internally Generated Fund (IGF) to improve service delivery in our municipality. In 2018, we used about 33 per cent of our IGF for capital expenditure such as the grading of selected feeder roads, construction of office complex, procurement of two brand new Toyota Hilux and renovation of major facilities in the municipality. We have also designed our own local Revenue Management software called the “Zebra” which has greatly improved our IGF,” he enumerated.
Mr Stephen said it was the vision of the assembly to renovate all public schools and health facilities within the municipality this year using their IGF.
“We would use about 60 per cent of our IGF for capital expenditure. We will also improve the road situation in our municipality and also mobilise enough revenue to stop our dependence on the District Assemblies Common Fund,” he assured.
The Municipal Coordinating Director, Mr Emmanuel Baisie, mentioned other achievements of the assembly within the one year of its establishment to include the construction of a six-unit classroom block and ancillary facilities at Kokrobite, rehabilitation of a six-unit classroom block at Domeabra, construction of CHPS compound at Tomefa and the construction of their four-storey office complex at Ngleshie Amanfro.
