64% of Ghanaians call for pause in creation of additional districts – CLGA survey

A survey of 10,400 citizens conducted by the Centre for Local Governance Advocacy has found that 64 per cent of Ghanaians want the government to halt the creation of additional districts, with respondents pointing to the failure of existing assemblies to deliver basic services. The findings were presented at the launch of a research report titled “The Continuous Creation of Districts in Ghana: Legal, Developmental, Fiscal and Political Implications,” and they place public opinion at odds with a policy that successive administrations have treated as an instrument of decentralisation.

Respondents rated assembly performance across seven areas including education, water, sanitation, roads and security, producing an overall negative assessment of 63 per cent. Isaac Owusu, Research Lead at CLGA, drew the obvious inference. “Which means the government needs to take time in creating a district because, at the end of the day, creating a district is supposed to serve the basic needs of the people, but the citizens say they are not getting the benefits from such an initiative,” he said. “So, we are saying we have to take our time and see how best we can help with the existing districts before creating more.”

The fiscal mechanics explain why subdivision can produce that outcome. Ghana’s district count has expanded through successive waves from 110 to more than 260 metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies, each addition bringing a chief executive, a coordinating director, a finance officer, administrative staff, office accommodation and vehicles. These are fixed costs incurred before a single service is delivered. The District Assemblies Common Fund, guaranteed under the Constitution at not less than five per cent of national revenue, is a pool that must be divided among all qualifying assemblies. Increasing the number of recipients while the pool grows more slowly reduces what each receives, and the administrative overhead absorbs a portion of what remains. Subdivision therefore transfers resources from service delivery to institutional existence unless accompanied by an increase in the total envelope.

Owusu also raised a question of legality. “If we are supposed to create more per the Constitution and the laws, we have criteria for creating a district,” he said. “But if you look at some of the districts that have been created, you can see that they don’t qualify to be a district.” The Local Governance Act sets population and viability thresholds for the establishment of assemblies, and his suggestion that some existing districts would fail those tests implies that instruments were issued without the underlying qualification being satisfied. That is a matter capable of verification against the criteria and the census data, and CLGA’s call for strict compliance regardless of political interest is directed at precisely that gap.

Two qualifications belong in the assessment. The survey measures perception rather than audited service delivery, and while a 63 per cent negative rating across 10,400 respondents is a substantial finding, it establishes what citizens experience rather than isolating its cause. Nor is the causal direction settled: weak performance may follow from fragmentation, or subdivision may be attempted as a remedy for areas that were already poorly served under larger assemblies. The argument for decentralisation retains force in principle, since communities distant from an assembly headquarters genuinely do struggle to have their priorities reflected in its budgets. The evidence presented here suggests the mechanism has not delivered on that promise at the current scale.

The report arrives in a week that has supplied its own illustrations. Traders at Dome Market are demanding the removal of a Municipal Chief Executive they accuse of defying a Regional Minister’s directive, a dispute about the basic accountability of local authority. Professor Godfred Bokpin has argued that fiscal consolidation which compresses investment leaves households with better indicators and unchanged lives. CLGA’s recommendations – comply with the legal criteria, and strengthen existing assemblies before creating new ones – are modest and testable. Whether they are adopted will depend on whether the political returns from announcing a new district continue to outweigh the evidence that citizens are not receiving what the announcement promises.

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