Current Situation of Development

This section reflects analysis of the major economic activities, income and expenditure as well as financial institutions in the Manya Krobo District.  It also looks at the District’s trial balance, including regulations for prudent fiscal management in the District Assembly.

Structure of the Local Economy

This section of the report examines the major economic activities undertaken in the District.  Mention is also made of minor economic activities which people engage themselves in as a coping strategy against insufficient returns from their major occupation.  The impact of the various economic activities on the socio-economic development of the District is also discussed.

The Table I.Ia below shows the minor and major occupational distribution in the District

            Source:  Field Survey, 2006

From table 1.1a, it can be seen that farming is the major occupation of most of the inhabitants in the District accounting for about 82.5% of the total workforce.  As with the nation, farming is the backbone of the local economy of the district.  It is therefore prudent to give farming the needed attention towards the development of the District.

Trading is the leading minor occupation of the people and those involved are mostly petty traders due to inadequate capital to expand their activities.  It could have been people‘s major occupation if they had enough capital.  Again, this is also a reflection of a larger national trend where there is a preference for trading and not direct production activities.  Efforts should therefore be made to create an enabling environment to promote productive activities.

Income and Expenditure levels and Patterns

As exists everywhere, income varies from one person to another, place to place, class to class among others.  In Manya Krobo District, income is derived from six major sources that are detailed in Table 1.1b.

                  Source:  Field Survey, 2006

From Table 1.1b it can be seen tat income from farm produce is the main source of income to the people.  It constitutes 44.7% of the main sources of income.  This buttresses the point hat the people are mostly farmers.  Sales of reared animals (animal farming) constitute the second largest source (23.7%).  It can be realized that the) backbone of the local economy is agriculture and must be considered vigorously n planning for the District to enable it to develop and to reduce its poverty.

Trading (mostly petty trading) is another important source of income to the people.  Many people are in trading but the capital involved is so meager that enough income is hardly realized.  Income from salaried sources is considered to be more secure, but it is low in the District, due to the presence of only a few salaried workers.  Most of these are education and health workers.

Generally, about 20% of the people receive more than 40% of the income, whilst more than 60% receive less than 20% of the total income.  Over 70% of the low income people are farmers who live in the rural parts of the District and who are mostly women.  In addition, about 60% of the people live on 23,000 cedis per month.  This demonstrates the magnitude of poverty in the District.

Although income is skewed to a few areas, household expenditure is even, covering various activities.  Food items take about 40.3% of the total expenditures, whereas 13.3% is spent on clothing.  These two items are necessities of life, hence expenditures on them is usually high.  

However, overspending on them will adversely affect the other sectors as well as investment of the people.  Surprisingly, expenditure on education, which is the engine of growth and development, is only 10%.  This portrays how difficult it is for people to spend on education in the District.  The low expenditure on education is a major contributor to the low level of education in the District.

Expenditure on health is also low.  This can be attributed to the inability of the people to pay for conventional health care.  Hence, they depend on traditional, herbal and spiritual treatment, instead of orthodox treatment.

Identification of POCC

Identification Of Potentials, Opportunities, Constraints & Challenges

The potentials of a District Assembly refer to factors, advantages and resources which when utilized can enable a district to enhance its socio-economic development.

Opportunities are external factors that positively influence development in a district.

Constraints are disadvantages emanating from internal factors such as institutional human and physical resources that act against development.

Challenges are obstacles at may hamper a smooth development effort.

The following table shows the potentials, opportunities, constraints and challenges of the Manya Krobo District presented in the light of its respective problems.

From the POCC analysis, it is important to focus on the following areas if the Manya Krobo District Assembly is to achieve its development targets:

Evolving alternative sources of development financing.

Re-engineering the system of collecting traditional revenue.

Capacity building.

Embarking on an aggressive staff attraction, motivation and retention strategies.

These key issues are addressed in the following sections of the plan.

Financial Institutions

Financial Institutions play a key role in the mobilization of resources in the District.   An analysis of financial institutions gives an indication of how local people utilize credit for internal development.

There are two major rural banks, the Manya Krobo Rural Bank at Odumase and the Upper Manya Kro Rural Bank at Asesewa.  The former has an agency at Kpong and the latter has opened two agencies at Koforidua.  There is also a Ghana Commercial Bank situated at Akuse.

Rural banks provide loan facilities to the people, especially traders and farmers.  The Upper Manya Kro Rural Bank, in conjunction with two NGOs at Asesewa, provides micro-financing facilities to the people in the surrounding villages.

To strengthen mobilization of funds from the communities, the Manya Krobo Rural Bank at Odumase-Krobo has setup a development projects fund.  The thrust is to mobilize funds to be saved at the bank.  There are also several traditional money lenders or “susu” Collectors in the District.

They provide an important service, because most individuals and firms find it difficult accessing credit from the established financial institutions due to lack of the necessary collateral security demanded by banks. However, these traditional susu collectors need to be monitored to avoid circumstance where some abscond with the people’s money.

Analysis of the District Revenue and expenditure Patterns

Revenue

A look at the District’s Trial Balance shows that its revenue comes from two main sources, its own sources (internal) and external sources.  The own sources of revenue or internally generated revenue sources are those found within the area of jurisdiction of the Assembly.

These are represented by fees, fines, licenses, rates, rents and land assessment as shown in table 1.1.c.  The external sources constitute grants.  These are made up of the District Assembly’s common fund, salaries and other grants in aid.

It can be seen that revenue from fees and fines constitute the biggest source of contribution to internally generated revenue in the District.  As far as the internally generated revenue is concerned, fees and fines alone contribute about 90% of the total internally generated revenue.  Fees and fines contribution reduced in 1998 to 9.8 then rose up to 11.8%, 12.2% and 13.9% in the years 2003, 2004 and 2005 respectively.

Again it is evident from the Table 1.1c that the least two sources of contribution come from rates and land assessment.  Except in the year 2002 where rates was the least contributor at 0.3% as opposed to land assessment at 0.4%,land assessment continues to be the least contributor to revenue generation in the District.

Still from the Table 1.1c, it can be seen that even though contributions from fees and fines continue to contribute largely to internally generated revenue in the District, external sources remain the largest source of revenue.  These are in the form of grants, which consist mostly of salaried wages and the District Assembly Common fund.

Efforts should therefore be made increasing internally generated revenue for the District.  An encouraging trend with external sources of revenue is the fact that money from investments, which was not featured in the 1998 trial balances, started making contributions to the total revenue from 1999 and on.

Expenditure

From Table 1.1d, which shows the expenditures for Manya Krobo District between 1999 and 2002, it can be seen that there are six major categories of expenditures for the District.  There are personal emoluments, traveling and transport, general expenses, maintenance / repair / renewal, miscellaneous and capital expenditures.  The trend as far as the percentage of expenditures of the various classifications has remained virtually the same.

The largest percentage of the Assembly’s expenditure is on development projects, within the period of 1998 and 2005, the expenditures for development projects have remained about 50% of the total Assembly expenditure.  In 1998, capital expenditure (development projects) contributed 46.8 of the Assembly’s total expenditure.

Capital expenditure increased further to 51.6% in 1999.  In 2000 and 2001, the percentages of expenditures for capital expenditures were 66.7% and 56.2% respectively.  The next largest expenditures classification is personal emolument with maintenance and repair having the least expenditures in terms of overall cost.

It can further be seen from the Table 1.1d that apart from the years 1999 and 2000, where there were no excesses of revenue over expenditure, all the other years between 1998 and 2001 had excess revenue.  The likely reason for the absence of excess revenue in 2000 was due to the national elections held in that year.

There are three main financial institution in the district:

Ghana Commercial Bank-Akuse

Manya Krobo Rural Bank –Odumase Krobo

Upper Manya Kro Rural Bank