She said the implementation of the Planting for Food and Jobs, One-District-One-Factory, the District and the Center for Agriculture, Commerce and Technology programme would be successful and yield positive outcomes if those policies are central in the 2018 budgets of the MMDAs.

Other policy, the sector minister said required utmost support from the MMDAs is the National Property Digital Addressing System. Hajia Mahama said this in a speech read on her behalf by Mr Augustine Collins Ntim, the Deputy Minister, at the opening session of the 2017 national conference of coordinating directors, underway in Sunyani.

Organised by the Local Government Service, the two-day conference is being held under the theme: “Transforming Leadership in the Local Government Service; Managing Local Resources for Sustainable Development”. Hajia Mahama said the Ministry would continue its responsibility over MMDAs and would conduct regular monitoring on the status of implementation of government policies and programmes geared towards poverty reduction and wealth creation.

“We cannot afford to falter, but to ensure that these policies are implemented to the latter”, she said and stressed the need for the MMDAs to re-orient their entire staff on such policies to enable them to have “a total buy-in”. “MMDAs would be required to update their profiles to reflect the policies” the sector minister indicated and ordered the various Regional Coordinating Councils to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the policies as part of their routine supervision of the operations of the MMDAs.

Hajia Mahama said that the government appreciated the numerous initiatives of the Local Government Service towards administrative decentralisation and effective service delivery and would continue to provide the needed support as an impetus to improving and sustaining these efforts for accelerated national development. Dr Nana Ato Arthur, the Head of the Local Government Service, said as the cream of the local government staff, it is expected of Regional and District Coordinating Directors to support government’s efforts to make the MMDAs and structures below them more democratic.

He said the Service intends to establish an award scheme for innovation and creativity, adding that to that effect a team of experts would be tasked to evaluate each MMDA on any area that might work out to achieve innovation and improvement in their output.

Dr Arthur urged the staff of the MMDAs to have new attitudes and approach to work and also exhibit high sense of professionalism for increased productivity. Mr Kwaku Asomah-Cheremeh, the Brong-Ahafo Regional Minister, said without the support of the MMDAs, implementation of government policies and programmes would not be fruitful and urged the Assemblies to provide the needed assistance.