DISTRICT ASSEMBLY: FUNCTIONS AND STRUCTURE

Assin South District Assembly was carved out of the former Assin District Assembly, it was established by Legislative Instrument, LI 1760 of 2004 as a District Assembly in the Central Region of Ghana.

District Assembly constitutes the highest political and administrative authority in the District (Local Governance Act 2016, Act. 936) with the mandate to initiate and co-ordinate all development efforts and to implement government policies aimed at sustainable development at all levels.

COMPOSITION

The Central Administration of the office of the District Assembly is broadly made up of eight units

(a) The General Administration
(b) Accounts Unit (Finance)
(c) Planning and Strategic Management Unit
(d) Budgeting and Rating Unit
(e) The Internal Audit Unit
(f) The Stores and Procurement Unit
(g) The Human Resource Unit
(h) The Records Unit

To facilitate the process of local governance, the Local Governance Act 2016 (Act. 936) made provision for the establishment of Eleven (11) Decentralized Departments and other administrative sub structures as Urban / Town / Area Councils and Unit committees.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY

The Assin South District Assembly has one (1) constituency, six (6) Area Councils, twenty-five (25) electoral areas and twenty five (25) Unit Committees. .

Out of the thirty-two (35) Assembly members, twenty-two (22) are elected and ten (10) appointed. There are two (2) women among them. There is also the Member of Parliament who is an ExOfficio Member.

The Assembly is empowered to exercise deliberative, legislative and executive functions in the District.

The Presiding Member who is elected from among the Assembly Members, chair’s the Assembly meetings as well as the Public Complaints sub-committee.

The Executive Committee which excludes the Presiding Member (PM) is chaired by the District Chief Executive (DCE).This body performs the executive and administrative functions of the District Assembly. The executive committee is made up of the chairpersons of the various sub committees of the assembly. It therefore operates through the following committees.

  i. Finance and Administration subcommittee
 ii. Social Services subcommittee
 iii. Agriculture subcommittee
 iv. Education subcommittee
 v. Justice and Security subcommittee
 vi. Development Planning subcommittee
 vii. Environment subcommittee
 viii. Works subcommittee
  ix. Tourism subcommittee
  x. Women in Development sub committee

ASDA has 10 sub-committees established to function as the operating arms of the executive committee and assist in the planning and implementation of specific activities of the assembly. These sub committees are responsible for deliberation on specific issues. They are expected to meet regularly, to develop plans on the sector in question and to submit reports to the Executive Committee for onward submission to the District Assembly for ratification. Heads of Department are ex-officio members of the sub- committee and are expected during the house deliberations to provide professional advice.

The District Administration is headed by the District Co-ordinating Director. The administration is established to provide secretarial and advisory services to the Assembly in its planning, programming and budgeting functions. The District Co-ordinating Director also has an oversight responsibility on the other decentralized departments.

The District Planning Officer in the District Planning Coordinating Unit undertakes the identification of the placements of developments projects and programmes needed to address the problems of the people, whilst the preparation of the District’s annual composite budgets and other estimates are functions undertaken by the District Budget Analyst. However, in line with the Guidelines for the Operationalization of the District and Regional Planning Coordinating Units, the secretariat is to be under the leadership of the District Coordinating Director.

Appendix 1 shows the composition and functions of the District Planning Coordinating Unit (DPCU). The District Co-ordinating Director is the Chairperson of the DPCU and mandated to convene DPCU meetings.

DECENTRALISED DEPARTMENTS

Section 78 and the first schedule of Act 936 enjoins each District to have the following eleven (11) decentralized departments. Table 15 shows those departments, that are existing and their state.

Table 9: List of Decentralized Department in the District

Source: (Local Governance Act, 2016 Act 936.)

Table 15, shows the District has all the complementary departments which are needed to enable the assembly function effectively and efficiently. Some of the problems facing the decentralized departments are:

1. Low motivation
2. Inadequate resources and logistics
3. inadequate office and residential accommodation for staff
4. Inadequate means of transport.
5. Limited decentralized/ centralized departments and agencies
6. Inadequate staff
 7. Apathy of other stakeholders

CENTRALISED DEPARTMENTS

Apart from the decentralized departments, the District also has the following:

1. Centre for National Culture
2. NBSSI
3. Electoral Commission
4. NCCE
5. Non Formal Education

Unfortunately, the following agencies; Electricity Company of Ghana, Forestry Commission, Stool Lands and Land Valuation still operate in the District through their District offices located in Assin Fosu.

NGOs There are a number of NGOs and CBOs operating in the District. Most of them however have their offices located outside the District.

Table 10: NGOs and CBOs

AREA COUNCIL

The District has no urban and town council, but six (6) area councils, namely

1. NyankumasiAhenkro
2. Manso
3. Nsuta
4. Anyinabrim
5. Adankwaman
6. Ongwa

Their main functions include revenue mobilization, identification of development needs, organization for communal labour, implementation of policies at the local level and community mobilization for popular participation in decision making. In performing these functions, they act as an extension arm of the Central Administration of the Assembly

Some of the challenges identified are:

 1. Lack of funds to implement local projects
2. Non- involvement in the planning process
3. Inadequate office accommodation
4. Lack of means of transport
5. Lack of information/ database
6. Lack of qualified staff
7. Low motivation

With the support of the District Assembly’s DDF and the ended CBRDP, some Area Councils with the exception of Nsuta Area council, have offices. Efforts are still being made to resource the various Area Councils as well as construct new offices for the rest without official accommodation.

UNIT COMMITTEES

There are 25 Unit Committees in the District. The functions of the Unit Committees are similar to those of the Area Councils. The major problems of the unit committees include:
1. Lack of incentives to the members
2. Low commitment on the part of the members
3. Irregular meetings
4. Lack of logistics
5. Low involvement in the planning process

SECURITY AND JUSTICE

Security is becoming a ‘major’ problem in the District. There are incidence of cases of assault and theft. In recent times, communication fraud also known as ‘’419’’ or ‘’sakawa’’ is becoming an emerging issues in the District.

There are also the hideous acts of grave looting and the unapproved exhumation of corpses for various rituals.

This phenomenon makes it difficult for families to bury their dead love ones in the cemeteries and sometimes resorts to burring in their houses which is totally against regulations and laid down procedures.

Armed robbery incidences are on the low side and there exist few land ligitigation incidences in the district. There are however a number of chieftaincy disputes among clans, notable amongst them is the long running dispute between the Anyinabrem Communities and the Ahwiam Communities over the right to farm lands and royalties.

Currently, the District has four (4) Police stations located at Nyankomasi-Ahenkro, Darmang, Manso and Anyinabrim with a Divisional Headquarters located in Nsuaem/Kyekyewere. Available statistics from the unit puts the police citizen ratio at 1:1450.

On the judiciary, the District has one court located at Nyankumasi/Ahenkro, Citizens therefore can take their cases there for justice and resolution instead of having to travel to Assin Fosu to access formal justice.

The chiefs, clan heads and opinion leaders of the various communities are sometimes involved in the mediation and resolution of conflicts between and amongst individuals and entities.

LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

The local economy of the Assin South District possesses a number of opportunities which despite a number of challenges, are being harnessed to develop the local economy. The opportunities which exist in within the local economy are:

· Palm nut processing into various products,
· Cassava processing in to various consumables and
· Bamboo.

Some attempts have been made to promote the expansion and development of these sectors however, there have been little progress due to a number of challenges such as packaging and marketing of these products.

The extraction and packaging of these products are capital intensive and require high funding which are not readily available, this leaves entrepreneurs producing in very small quantities and not exporting.