THE GOVERNMENT OF GHANA AND CITIES ALLIANCE SIGNED AGREEMENT

The Government of Ghana and the Cities Alliance Group have signed a partnership agreement which would enable Ghana benefit from technical and other assistant from the Group.

Hon Maxwell Kofi Jumah, the Deputy Minister of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment signed on behalf of Ghana and Mr. Kevin Milroy, Chief Operating Officer of the Group signed on behalf of Cities Alliance. Cities Alliance is a body made up of donor groups, members of the G7 countries, World Bank, and DFID, based in Washington.

In his address, Honorable Jumah said the country has achieved significant political and administrative decentralized planning. However fiscal decentralization has remained an unyielding component.

He noted further that Government wants to further strengthened local government finance through the formation of Local Government Credit Market by which assemblies would be assisted in accessing long-term credits.

This will involve enactment of a Local Government Finance act and the establishment of a special Financing Intermediary to assist local government access debt markets for infrastructural investment.

To achieve this, he said the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment together with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning have embarked upon Municipal Finance and Management Initiative aim at developing a sustainable, vibrant and reliable Local Credit Market for Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to cope with the backlog of infrastructural development and delivery.

"As part of this initiative to enhance revenues of MMDAs, proposed Local Government Finance Bill and Municipal Finance Authority Bill have been developed for enactment, as soon as possible, after Cabinet approval".

Honorable Professor George Gyan-Baffour on his part commendered Cities Alliance for their support and assured them of Government’s preparedness to partner with them in ensuring the decentralization process.

He urged officials of the Local Government Ministry to ensure that district assemblies are liable to any financial agreement they enter into in order not to increase the national debt burden.

Mr. Milroy commendered the Ghana for advances made in the decentralization process and pledged the group’s support to the Government to help facilitate the infrastructural developments in the country.

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