MMDAs urged to focus more on job creation

Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) have been urged to adopt innovative ways for job creation.

Dr Nana Ato Arthur, Head of Local Government Service said although MMDAs were not responsible for creating jobs, it was incumbent on them to create the congenial environment for job creation.

Citing the government’s ‘One District, One Factory’ industrialisation programme, he said some MMDAs had demarcated land banks and others supported mechanism for the establishment of businesses to create jobs for the youth.

“The MMDAs must up their game to ameliorate the plight of the citizenry,” Dr Arthur said at the National Stakeholder’s Dialogue on Public Sector Reforms (Phase one) in Cape Coast.

It is being held on the theme: “Taking Stock and Identifying Emerging Issues to Shape Ghana’s New Public Sector Reform Strategy, 2025-2030.”

Dr Arthur noted that unemployment among others had become a critical issue confronting the nation and for that matter, it was pertinent for the assemblies to do more to reflect the essence of decentralisation.

People would need to work to earn money to pay for the electricity, water and other social amenities extended to their communities, he stated.

For that matter, MMDAs should collaborate with the private sector to efficiently harness the economic potentials in their jurisdiction to create employment opportunities.

Dr Arthur expressed dissatisfaction at the inability of many of the Assemblies to develop their resources to improve their finances for accelerated development.

He discouraged their over-reliance on central government’s funding for development and asked them to take advantage of the Public Private Partnership arrangement to generate revenue for implementation of their development agenda.

He underscored MMDAs priority areas of to support local government to deliver value for money services through the mobilization, harmonization and utilization of quality human capacity and material resources to promote local and national development.

Giving an overview of the meeting, Mrs Thelma Ohene-Asiamah, Director, General Administration for the Public Sector Reform Secretariat said the cross-sectorial stakeholders’ forum sought to take stock of the implementation of the National Public Sector Reform Strategy (NPSRS).

They would analyse the key reforms undertaken in the public sector from 2018 to 2023 and rally ownership and support for the development and implementation of a new NPSRS for the period 2025-2030.

She said it would provide valuable learnings on what had been achieved, what areas of the reforms needed more attention, what areas were no longer relevant and to identify the gaps in the strategy because of organisational change or external or contextual changes and emerging issues.