– Monday November 11, 2019: In the discharge of its role under the Ghana Secondary Cities Support Programme (GSCSP), the Office of the Head of the Local Government Service (OHLGS) has commenced a series of trainings on improved revenue administration for key officers of beneficiary Regional Coordinating Councils (RCCs) and Municipal Assemblies (MAs). The training is to build the capacities of the participating MAs to shawl up Internally Generated Funds (IGF) mobilisation. The key officers participating in the training includes Coordinating Directors, Internal Auditors, Engineers, Planning, Budget and Physical Planning officers.
At the opening of the first in the series of four trainings, the Director of Policy at the OHLGS, Mrs. Lena Otoo remarked that, municipal service delivery by Assemblies has been adversely affected by financial constraints. This gap according to her, has been taken cognisance of under the GSCSP and provision made to sharpen the skills of staff of MAs to maximise revenue mobilisation and ensure financial independence. She added that the ability of MAs to plug leakages and deploy innovative revenue generation strategies will eventually bring about sustainable funding for the provision of municipal services. She urged the officers to pay attention, share experiences and make the best out of the training workshop.
The training facilitators emphasised the need for MAs step up their revenue mobilisation efforts and guided participants through some time tested strategies and approaches including the development of soft skills to mitigate the effect of challenges that impinge on effective revenue administration processes. Participants were also introduced to the procedures and requirements for outsourcing revenue management to third parties to help them leverage on private sector participation in service delivery. The GSCSP uses country systems as such the training also highlighted the need for integration of programme activities into Assembly’s Annual Action Plans and budgets.
With trainings completed for MAs in Zones 1 and 2, trainings for MAs in Zones 3 and 4 is set to take place in the Volta and Central Regions respectively. In all, a total of One Hundred and Ninety-Six (196) key officers of the participating RCCs and MAs will be trained. Preliminary reports from pre and post training evaluations for the two zones showed a changes in the knowledge and skills levels of officers who participated in the training.
The Ghana Secondary Cities Support Programme (GSCSP) is the successor programme of the Local Government Capacity Support Project (LGCSP) funded by the World Bank. Its Implementation begun in 2018 as part of measures to consolidate the gains made under the LGCSP. The GSCSP is being implemented by 25 selected Municipal Assemblies in the 10 Regions that were in existence at the time of the commencement of the programme. The GSCSP is to support the participating MAs deliver effective and efficient urban services. Under the programme, the OHLGS is responsible to build the capacities of RCCs and MAs in critical areas of local governance procedures and revenue administration among others.