The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development has commenced a process that should lead to the formulation of a policy to ensure the successful implementation of the second phase of the decentralization programme.
The process commenced with the inauguration of a task force by the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development Dauda Kamara in April this year, and the basic responsibility of the task force was to oversee the preparation of the policy to guide and direct implementers of the decentralization programme.
The task force will also ensure the harmonization of the local government act, 2004 with existing legislations that conflict with it.
The Ministry is making this move based on the advice of the decentralization secretariat of IRCBP. And the move is borne out of the fact that though phase one was implemented very successfully, some problems were encountered which it is thought, was due to the fact that no policy was in place to guide the implementation process.
The task force also has the responsibility of identifying problem areas in phase one and to set up such problem areas into six categories.
From June 6 to July 1 this year, nation-wide stakeholder consultative forums were held at district level during which the problem areas already identified by the task force were presented to participants who in turn recommended solutions to them.
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