The Municipal Assembly

The Ho Municipal Assembly established by Legislative Instrument 1796 of 2004, is the Highest Political and Administrative Authority in the Ho Municipality. The Structure of the Assembly is made up of the Municipal Co-ordinating Directorate and eleven (11) Decentralized Departments. A very important Component of the structure is the Municipal Planning Co-ordinating Unit (MPCU) which is responsible for Co-ordinating the development planning activities of the Assembly.

The Municipal Assembly is headed by the Municipal Chief Executive as the direct Representative of the President in the Municipality. However, the Co-ordinating Directorate is headed by the Municipal Co-ordinating Director as the Head of the Administration. The Legislative and Deliberative organ of the Assembly is made up of 41 elected members and 13 Government appointees. It is headed by the Presiding Member who presides over meetings of the Assembly. The Assembly works through its Executive Committee and its sub committees, five of which are Finance and Administration, Development Planning, Works, Social Services, and Justice and Security Sub-committees, are statutory.

The non-statutory ones are Women Affairs, Tourism Sub-Committee, Water and Sanitation, Sub-Committee, Public complaints and Disaster Management Sub-Committee. Owing to lack of office space, most of the Decentralized Departments are scattered from the Co-ordinating Directorate and this makes co-ordination difficult. The staffing position of the Co-ordinating Directorate and the decentralized departments is not strong, especially where professional and technical staffs are concerned. This, coupled with inadequate logistical support, adversely affect the operations of the Assembly. There is also the added problem of some Assembly members relaxing in the execution of their responsibilities, especially in consulting their electorates before attending Assembly meetings and relaying Assembly decisions back to them after Assembly meetings.

The Sub - Municipal Structures

Below the Municipal Assembly are the Sub - Municipal Structures. The Ho Municipal Assembly with the support from the Danish Support to Municipal Assemblies II (DSMA II) was able to operationahse all its 13 sub-structure to bring governance closer to the doorsteps of the people. However, with the end of Danish Support, the Assembly could not sustain the operation of the structures and all with the exception Ho Urban Council, are dormant.

This has adversely affected internal revenue generation of the Assembly as the sub-structures are supposed to be revenue generation agencies. It is also worth mentioning that the ZCs were directly in charge of the implementation of the sub- Municipal Economic Fund, which is a development fund support from DSDA II with supervision and co-ordination from the Municipal Assembly. In fact, physical economic infrastructure can be seen on the ground when one visits these ZCs, However with the dormancy of the Councils, the operation of the projects have also stalled. One cannot lose sight of the numerous problems militating against the smooth operation of the ZCs. Notable among them is the issue of non-payment of salaries to the core staff of the ZCs.