By Mama A. Touray
Director of Governance at the Ministry of Local Government, Lands and Religious Affairs, David Gomez on Wednesday testified before the ongoing Local Government Commission of Inquiry that each council receives D2 million from the central government.
Testifying before the Commission, David Gomez said when the government started disbursing subvention to the council, it started with a sum of half a million dalasi (five hundred thousand dalasi), the most recent project he said was D2 million dalasi, he said it is a subvention to each council.
Director Gomez said after receiving (giving) the subvention “We requested councils to come up with projects that will consume two million dalasi and then a committee is put in place for such a purpose whereby this committee will look at the council submission on the projects, We look if they are realistic, in some cases you will even find that some councils will submit above the two million” he explained to the commission.
“One of the questions we asked is how are you going to finance the variance because the government is giving you D2 million, so if they come with a project of D2.2 million, (the question is that) the other difference how are you going to finance it. So, the committee will look at these projects that the council submitted and either put a pass or a fail. If there are any abnormalities then the committee will bring this to the attention of the councils.” he explained.
He explained further to the commission that when the committee is looking at these projects, they invite the council concerned to look at them together while the committee will advise accordingly. If there are issues that the committee noticed they will tell them to go back to their drawing boards and do the needful and resubmit them.
Director Gomez testified that the committee failed the council if they cannot justify their project at that material point in time but once the council is in a (right) position of the project the committee has no problem with it.
Meanwhile, he informed the Commission that the Government approved sixteen million dalasis to eight councils, but at the time of his testimony, he could not tell the Commission the date of the disbursement.
He explained that the local government act provides for the provision of three grants to councils, “we have the conditional grants (grant in aid), the general grant which attracts ten percent of the capital budget of a council, and the equalization grant”.