By Daniel Bampoe
The Minority Caucus in Parliament has issued a strong demand to government to immediately pay outstanding arrears owed to Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) under the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF), warning that continued delays are crippling local development, stalling projects, and undermining the constitutional system of decentralisation.
Addressing a press conference in Accra, Minority Chief Whip and Member of Parliament for Nsawam-Adoagyiri, Frank Annoh-Dompreh, said the failure to release constitutionally guaranteed DACF funds has gone beyond administrative delays and now constitutes a serious breach of constitutional and statutory obligations owed to local governments across the country.
According to the Minority, the DACF is not a discretionary budgetary item but a constitutional entitlement anchored in Article 252 of the 1992 Constitution, which mandates that not less than 5% of Ghana’s total national revenue must be paid into the Fund for distribution to district assemblies.
They stressed that this provision was deliberately entrenched to protect local development financing from political interference and central government discretion.
They further recalled the landmark 2019 Supreme Court ruling in Benjamin Komla Kpodo & Richard Quashigah v. Attorney-General, which affirmed that neither Parliament nor the Minister for Finance has the authority to cap or reduce the DACF below the constitutional minimum.
The judgment, the Minority noted, made it clear that the 5% allocation is a binding constitutional floor, not a negotiable target.
Despite this legal clarity, the Minority said successive budgetary practices have resulted in persistent under-transfers and mounting arrears, leaving district assemblies starved of funds.
They pointed to years in which DACF transfers fell far below the constitutional threshold and argued that many payments announced by government in recent times were largely settlements of old debts dating back to 2014–2016, rather than evidence of current compliance.
In their account, the arrears problem has now become systemic. Billions of cedis in DACF obligations remain unpaid, translating directly into abandoned projects, unpaid contractors, and delayed community infrastructure. Roads, school blocks, clinics, markets, sanitation projects and water systems, they said, have stalled across the country because district assemblies simply do not have the resources to implement their Medium-Term Development Plans.
The Minority drew a sharp contrast between the DACF and other statutory and constitutional funds, noting that while GETFund and the National Health Insurance Fund have received large and timely releases, the DACF continues to suffer long-standing arrears.
This, they argued, reflects a distorted prioritisation in public finance management, where constitutionally guaranteed funding for local development is treated as secondary.
“This is not just a financial issue; it is a governance crisis,” the Minority declared, arguing that underfunding the DACF weakens decentralisation itself. They said district assemblies cannot function effectively without predictable and timely funding, and when the Common Fund is delayed or withheld, the entire architecture of local governance collapses.
Taking a firm stance, the Minority directly challenged government to pay the arrears now, insisting that development at the grassroots cannot be postponed any longer.
They called for an immediate settlement framework to clear outstanding DACF debts, beginning with a transparent audit of all arrears and a structured repayment plan spread over multiple fiscal years.
They also demanded reforms to prevent future accumulation of arrears, including automatic revenue-based computation of the DACF, stronger parliamentary oversight, and strict administrative mechanisms within the Ministry of Finance to ensure timely quarterly transfers.
Parliament, they insisted, must play a more active enforcement role, not merely receive reports.
Beyond financial reforms, the Minority framed the arrears issue as a constitutional test.
They warned that continued non-payment represents a direct violation of Article 252 and an erosion of the rule of law. In their view, the failure to honour DACF obligations is not just mismanagement—it is unconstitutional governance.
They concluded by reaffirming that the DACF belongs to the districts, not to central government. “These are not favours; they are rights,” the Minority said, stressing that every district—from the most deprived rural communities to major urban centres—is entitled to its constitutional share of national revenue.
Until the arrears are paid and regular transfers restored, they warned, decentralisation in Ghana will remain hollow, and development at the grassroots will continue to suffer.
