The month of October, 2020, has been packed with administrative duties as all departments put together all comprehensive reports, documents backing all financial transactions, procurement, programs and projects carried out by the Assembly in the year period of 2019/20.

Shama District Assembly has successfully completed a local government assessment exercise which is a determiner of the progress or retrogress of all metropolitan, municipal or district Assemblies in Ghana.

The DPAT is a diagnostic instrument for assessing the performance of MMDAs and for determining the allocation of the DACF Responsiveness Factor Grant (RFG) to MMDAs.

The objectives of the DPAT is to provide information on District Assemblies’ compliance with legal and regulatory framework, obtain performance information on the functional capacity of District Assemblies, and identify capacity gaps of District Assemblies. DPAT also establishes a link between performance and capacity building support and provide a basis for incentivizing District Assemblies.

There are guiding principles applied to the development of DPAT and the performance assessment process. With these principles, MMDAs are strictly assessed against their legal obligations and issues that fall within their direct span of control; the indicators acknowledge the specific legal, political, administrative and fiscal environment in which MMDAs operate.

The indicators capture the roles and responsibilities of functionaries of MMDAs.

The assessment process is based on indicators that are objectively verifiable and simple in order to minimize discretion. The assessment process facilitates the identification of capacity building needs for institutional strengthening. Integrate MMDAs performance assessment and capacity-building interventions into the budgeting cycle.

The DPAT has two components, namely Minimum Conditions (MCs) and Performance Measures (PMs).

This year, Shama District is overwhelmed with a satisfying results yet a deserving one which complements our hard work.

As staffs of the Assembly, we enjoy this feat not by believing it was wholly attain and achieved by our efforts alone.

On behalf of the District Chief Executive, Hon. Joseph Amoah, the District Coordinating Director, Richard Blevi, the Presiding Member, Hon. Mark Ackon and staffs of the Assembly, a very undiluted appreciation at heart goes out to our giant stake holder Nananom of the Shama Traditional Area, Member of Parliament, Hon. Ato Pamford, all our able hardworking and development driven Assembly members, NGO’s, other Governmental and nom-governmental institution within Shama, our supportive constituents of Shama District, friends of Shama District and the media for joining hands in working towards this height.

To our visionary, decisive and insightful Chief Executive of Shama District, Hon. Joseph Amoah, you are well appreciated for leading this Assembly to a successful year. Your humility but strategic leadership quality has elephantly yielded positive results.

In a meeting where the assessment team announced our results and accompanied it with their positive remarks, the District Chief Executive expressed his delightfulness and also urged all staff members to continually work with a purpose. The purpose for the years ahead is to

maintain our 100% minimal conditions score and our 90% performance measures.

Our cake has been iced with the news of Shama District being the only district in Ghana to be nominated for the 2020 Open Government Partnership.

Open Government Partnership is an institutional partnership for nationals and subnational to be strengthened and also it calls for a more transparent governance.

Shama was selected based on a strict assessment criteria put forward by the OGP Team.

We are indeed excited to see Shama District, Western Region, the only district in Ghana among 56 other subnational governments across the globe to join the OGP programme.

Local government plays a key role in open governance by being closer to the people and delivers crucial services that require effective and responsive local government.

This great success will bring experts from other countries to work together with the Assembly to ensure our activities are open, inclusive, participatory, and responsive to the needs of all citizens in our District.

Through this programme, the capacity of the Assembly will be built, access to social amenities would be expanded and the district will be globally visible.