Mahama Government Owes District Assemblies GH¢7.33bn … Say Minority

The Minority Leadership in Parliament says the John Mahama government owes the Districts Assembly Common Fund (DACF) a whopping GH¢7.33 billion covering the period 2024. According to the Minority, the development has contributed to stalled projects, unpaid contractors and weakened service delivery across districts.

Addressing a news conference in Accra on Tuesday, this week, the Minority Chief Whip, Frank Annoh-Dompreh cited Article 252(2) of the Constitution and the 2019 Supreme Court decision in Kpodo & Quashigah v. Attorney-General and stressed that the DACF must receive not less than 5% of total national revenue, a requirement that has been repeatedly breached by the current government.

The Minority members said though GH¢7.33 billion of the DACF is in arrears, other statutory funds such as GETFund and the National Health Insurance Fund received substantial releases in early 2025.

Frank Annoh-Dompreh also described the 2025 Ministerial Guidelines for the utilisation of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) as illegal and unconstitutional, warning that its implementation poses a serious threat to Ghana’s decentralised governance framework.

According to him, the Executive had exceeded its lawful authority by introducing what he called a “parallel allocation regime” that imposes new mandatory percentages, new expenditure categories, and new national priorities that do not exist in the Parliamentary Formula.

This action, according to Annoh-Dompreh, means the Executive has stepped beyond guidance into redesign, a situation he noted, violates the 1992 Constitution.

“This is not a technical oversight. This is not an administrative disagreement. It is a constitutional breach. The Minister has no authority to redesign or substitute the DACF formula approved by Parliament. That power belongs to Parliament alone,” he said.

Conflict Between Parliamentary Formula and Ministerial Guidelines

At the heart of the dispute is the 2025 DACF Formula, approved by Parliament in line with Article 252 of the 1992 Constitution, which mandates Parliament to determine the formula for sharing the Common Fund among Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs).

According to the Minority, the approved formula allocates GH¢7.51 billion for 2025 using a data-driven and equity-based model that prioritises deprived districts through weighted indicators such as need factors, equality components, service pressure and location quotients.

However, the Ministerial Guidelines issued by the Ministry of Local Government impose fixed national expenditure percentages, including 25% for 24-hour economy markets, 10% each for CHPS compounds, school blocks, boreholes and sanitation, and 20% for legacy projects.

“These percentages appear nowhere in the Parliamentary Formula,” the Minority Chief Whip said adding “they are not supplementary. They are not interpretative. They are substitutive and, therefore, illegal.”

Alleged Breach of the Law

The Minority insists that while Section 126(1) of the Local Governance Act, 2016 (Act 936) allows the Minister to issue utilisation guidelines, that power is strictly limited to facilitating implementation of the formula approved by Parliament and not altering it.

By imposing new mandatory allocations, the Minority argues, the Minister has acted ultra vires, undermining both the Constitution and the Local Governance Act.

“This action weakens parliamentary supremacy, distorts decentralisation, and threatens the financial autonomy of our district assemblies,” Annoh-Dompreh said.

The Minority warned that the guidelines could have far-reaching consequences for local development, particularly for deprived districts.

First, they argue that equity is undermined, as fixed national percentages ignore disparities in development needs between rural and urban districts.

Second, they say local autonomy is eroded, as district assemblies are forced into centrally prescribed spending patterns that may conflict with their Medium-Term Development Plans.

Third, the Minority raised concerns about blurred governance roles, particularly provisions that expand approval roles for Members of Parliament in district-level spending, which they say risks politicising local administration.

Additionally, the caucus cautioned that the existence of two competing authorities, the parliamentary formula and ministerial guidelines creates administrative confusion, delays procurement, and exposes public officers to legal risk.

The Minority called for the immediate withdrawal or revision of the 2025 DACF Guidelines to align them strictly with the parliamentary formula.

They also urged Parliament to reassert its constitutional authority and called on the DACF Administrator and MMDAs to adhere only to the approved formula.

Civil society and the media, the Minority said, must also play an active role in holding the Executive accountable.

To Annoh-Dompreh, the issue transcends partisan politics. “We are not opposed to development. We are opposed to illegality. Constitutions do not enforce themselves. When executive authority exceeds its lawful boundaries, silence becomes betrayal,” he said.

By Stephen Larbi

 

 

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