OHLGS – Wednesday, July 2, 2025: The Head of the Local Government Service, Professor Lord Mensah, has called on Metropolitan, Municipal and District Coordinating Directors (MMDCDs) in the Greater Accra Region to rally behind his vision for transforming the Service.
Addressing the MMDCDs at his first official meeting with them, Prof. Mensah expressed appreciation for their presence and outlined his vision, which focuses on professionalising the Service, enhancing data-driven decision-making, promoting Public Private Partnerships (PPP), strengthening fiscal decentralisation, and boosting revenue generation to build an efficient Local Government Service.
He emphasised the need to tackle recurring unprofessional conduct among staff, improve client services, and adopt innovative strategies to raise revenue generation across the Service from 5% to 25% over time. These measures, he noted, are key to advancing decentralisation through financial independence.
Prof. Mensah acknowledged that restructuring the Service will not be easy but said he is confident in the expertise of the MMDCDs to implement structures that will drive his vision forward.
During an open forum, the MMDCDs thanked the Head of Service for his forward-thinking approach and shared some of the challenges they face in delivering on their mandate. They recommended developing a framework to strengthen local economic development through PPPs, addressing issues of staff indiscipline such as absenteeism, and establishing mechanisms to review and align Performance Assessment Contracts with Local Economic Development (LED) plans.
The Chief Director of the Greater Accra Regional Coordinating Council, Mrs. Lilian Baeka, assured Prof. Mensah of the MMDCDs’ commitment to deliver on their responsibilities and expressed confidence that their concerns would be addressed.
In her closing remarks, the Chief Director of the OHLGS, Mrs. Felicia Dapaah Agyeman-Boakye, described the meeting as productive and urged the MMDCDs to champion the Head of Service’s vision at the local level by engaging their staff to build collective support. She encouraged them to leverage innovative local solutions to advance local economic development, improve services, and promote the Local Government Service and Ghana as a whole.
