The Dormaa West District Assembly of the Bono Region was ranked fourth in the national ranking on Local Governance Index (LOGIN) performance assessment of the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in the country.
The district scored 75.3 percent in the overall ranking of the Ministry of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development (MLGDRD).
The Mpohor District in the Western Region topped the rankings with 86. 2 per cent, followed by the Akyemansa and Kwahu East Districts in the Eastern Region which scored 78. 2 percent and 77. 5 percent respectively in that order.
According to the local government research finding LOGIN report released by the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) of the MLGRD, the Bono Region had the highest and ranked top in the local governance index with 58.3 percent in the seven local governance indicators.
A copy of the LOGIN report, made available to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), explained the findings of 261 local government authorities nationwi
de on quality of governance performance.
The ILGS in collaboration with the MLGDRD, the Office of the Head of Local Government Studies (OHLGS) with funding from the State Secretariat of Economic Affair (SECO), Switzerland, conducted the research.
It explained the ILGS conceived the idea to conduct the annual assessment of local governance performance in all MMDAs, however, had to postpone the idea due to financial challenges until 2022, when the two institutions agreed to partner to execute the project.
Although there are currently three assessment and rankings indexes in the country, namely District Performance Assessment Tool (DPAT), Local Governance Service (LGS) performance evaluation and District League Table (DLT), their methods of assessment do not take into consideration residents’ perceptions.
The report stressed the LOGIN puts residents at the centre of performance assessment of MMDAs, filling the gap in the country’s decentralization in local governance practices by putting residents at the cen
tre of performance assessment of their MMDAs.
‘The limitations of the existing assessment tools, the need to put residents at the centre of local governance assessment, and the demand by citizens to hold their local governments (LGs) accountable for performance are the reasons for the establishment of the LOGIN,’ it stated.
It further indicated the LOGIN used residents’ scorecards to rank the 261 MMDAs on seven local governance performance areas and national ranking of 47 thematic local government indicators.
The areas include quality of administrative services, quality of leadership exhibited by the District Chief Executive, quality of representation by assembly members and quality of professionalism exhibited by the staff of the District Assembly.
The rest are quality of opportunities provided by the local governance for residents to participate in their local governance and decision-making, and quality of opportunities provided by the local economic development. The overall performance shows nine distr
icts scored excellent performance (71 percent and
above), 53 districts had incredibly good (between 61 percent and 70 percent) while the majority (109 districts) had good scores (between 51 percent and 60 percent).
It revealed that Savannah and Oti regions were the least ranked, scoring 49.4 per cent saying, ‘it is also imperative to observe these regions were carved out of existing regions’.
Out of the 47 thematic indicators that constituted the LOGIN, the provision of basic health services and clean water supply emerged as the most appreciated local governance indicators with a score of 60 per cent each.
‘This is to the credit of the MMDAs as the provision of these two basic social services is usually visible for residents to appreciate.
The MMDAs have been able to ensure the availability of Community Health Planning Services Compounds (CHPS), health centres and potable water supply,’ it added.
‘Participation in fee-fixing and budgeting was ranked the lowest amongst the 47 indicators with a score of 4
8 per cent.
This was not surprising as many residents across the country mentioned inadequate opportunity to participate in local governance decision making as a key challenge to local governance,’ the report added.
Between September 8, and October 16, 2023, about 108,000 residents in the 261 local government areas assessed their MMDAs on the 47 local governance indicators on a scale from one to five.
It said in each of the 261 local areas, a minimum of 385 respondents made up of ordinary residents, traditional leaders, Community-based organisations and the business community, (market women, shop owners, traders, artisans) as well as professional groups and others were systematically stratified and sampled from five electoral areas for the questionnaire.
In all the research covered 1, 305 out of the 6,272 electoral areas in the country, representing 20.8 per cent coverage based on rating remarks.
Source: Ghana News Agency