By Saio Marrah
The just enacted local government law by Parliament has made it mandatory on councils to publish their quarterly financial activities or pay the fine of 25 thousand new Leones.
The new law enacted on Monday 19th December 2022 aims at ensuring transparency in the financial activities of the councils.
The Minister of Local Government, Tamba Lamina informed journalists after the amendment of the 2004 local council law that the critical thing around the 22 municipalities within the country is that” accountability and governance have to be a major focus.
‘’ That particularly has to do with transparency, what happens within the councils, especially how the people’s money is spent has to be publicized every quarter on notice board in all local councils,” he said.
He also noted that unlike in the past when mayors and chairmen were only given remunerations for council sitting, the new law has made sure they now have salaries.
Chairmen and Mayors in the past chose among councilors to serve as their deputies, but the new law has now compelled them to have their running mates before contesting elections.
Also tribal and village heads in Western Area Rural and Urban Areas are now allowed to sit in council meetings as ex officio without voting rights.
While parliamentarians are now represented in all council meeting as ex officios, Paramount Chiefs’ presence in the council meetings has now increased from 10 to 20% in the same council meetings.
Also, there is now a revenue sharing guideline between the district councils and the chiefdom administration.
The new law has also ensured that councils are the highest development and political authorities in the district and that heads of districts council usually known as Chairman have now changed to “District Chairman.”
In the area of devolved function, school feeding, subsidies and teachers recruitment which were previously devolved from the Ministry of Basic and Senior School Education will now be handled by the ministry in collaboration with local councils across the country.
Also,cases of survey and the issuance of building permit are now done by the lands commission in collaboration with local councils.
More so, Mayors and Chairmen and other staff of the council are now entitled to retirement benefits.
The minister described the decentralization as the sure way of ensuring that the people’s voice is heard in governance.
He noted that in the 2004 act, even though there was devolution of functions, but devolution in the area of staff, asset and funding had not been achieved.
After noting that his ministry has the required structures to ensure they monitor as the supervising ministry for effectiveness of the new law, he also called on parliament to effectively make use of their oversight role.
Copyright © 2022 Politico (21/12/22)
