He said this required them to bring up ideas and develop innovative programmes and make sacrifices to ensure the effective implementation of government programmes for accelerated national development.Mr Duncan was speaking at the Central Regional Delegates Conference of the National Association of Local Authorities of Ghana (NALAG), on the theme: ‘The Role of Local Authorities in the Implementation of the Global Agenda for Sustainable Development’, in Cape Coast last Wednesday.

“Our responsibility as local authorities is to partner government in pursuance of its developmental agenda,” he said.

Citizen relations

Mr Duncan admonished the workers to strive to improve their relationships with the citizenry, especially the people at the grass-root level.

He said having a good relationship with the citizenry was one of the surest ways to prompt their support in the quest for national building.

Mr Duncan said it was the responsibility of the workers to move the association to a high level that would influence government decisions and policies especially in the wake of the present competitive global market and technological advancements.

Commendations

He commended the Central Regional NALAG members for their professionalism and the commitment exhibited in the execution of their duties at their various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs), urging them to shy away from behaviours that could put the image of government into disrepute.

Training programmes

Mr Duncan advised the leadership of NALAG to organise training and capacity building programmes for both members and staff of the association to help develop their skills and enhance efficiency.

“The world is constantly changing with modern information systems and artificial intelligence and as a country we can only keep pace with the rest of the world by further deepening our decentralisation processes for our local socio-economic activities to meet global standards,” he stated.

The General Secretary of NALAG, Mr Amankwah Kokro, who was speaking on behalf of the NALAG President, Mr Felix Nii Anang-La, said the theme of the event was chosen to reflect the importance of the local governments in the realisation of the global agenda in which Ghana was a signatory, and to strategise how the structures and activities of the region could be improved while looking at the global agenda of sustainable development.

He observed that local governance and decentralisation had taken global dimensions and members of the association had to appreciate the implication it had on their operations at the local level.

“We cannot be immune to the global agenda for sustainable development because whatever happens globally has an impact on the local and vice versa,” he said.

Mr Albert Solomon Bondzi, who is an assembly member of the Abura Dunkwa District Assembly, was elected unopposed as the Central Regional Representative of NALAG at the conference.