She said this was to engender competition amongst MMDAs, as well as stimulate district level performance and further deepen decentralisation in the country.  Mrs Amoako Atta was speaking at the Northern Regional pre-launch meeting on the 2017 DLT in Tamale on Monday.

The meeting, organised by the Centre for Democratic Development-Ghana (CDD-Ghana) in collaboration with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD) with funding from United Nations Children Fund, was also to appraise MMDAs of the objectives, processes and outcome of DLT.

The DLT seeks to assess, compare and measure the level of development in the provision and delivery of key public services in all 216 MMDAs in the country.

It aims to strengthen social accountability in development throughout the country to improve responsiveness in service delivery and development.

Mrs Amoako Atta said the local government service (LGS) had developed and implemented the Local Government Service Performance Management System (PMS) in a bid to improve institutional performance.

She said “The DLT, therefore, provides enough justification for the selection of indicators for the PMS by highlighting the challenges of the districts through the assessment.”

Mr Salifu Saeed, Northern Regional Minister urged MMDAs to effectively execute their mandate to provide the needed socio-economic facilities to improve living conditions of the citizenry.

Mr Saeed said “This must not be seen as a mere competition on who has won, but rather a challenge that we have to confront as stakeholders that we have a responsibility to ensure and overcome the developmental challenges and obstacles in our communities.”