NEW TECHNOLOGY FOR DISTRICT ASSEMBLIES

By Mawutodzi K. Abissath

Daily Graphic June 13, 2002

DOUBTLESSLY, one political legacy bequeathed Ghana by the PNDC/NDC government is the institutionalisation of the district assemblies.

What is even more commendable and reassuring is the fact that the NPP government has not only embraced the district assemblies system but has also adopted certain measures to make them more effective and efficient for national prosperity. This is precisely one of the ways by which most advanced societies have succeeded in building solid nations for their people.

Records show that since the inception of the district assembly system in Ghana in 1988, several other African countries, including Burkina Faso, Uganda, Mali, Namibia, Senegal, Malawi and South Africa have visited Ghana to understudy the system.

 In fact, some of them have actually adopted the concept and are reportedly implementing it in their own backyards. Thus, Ghana's district assembly system can be categorised as a model in modern local government systems in Africa.

Nevertheless, Ghanaians must be humble enough to be the first to admit that all is not too well with their district assemblies in terms of revenue mobilisation and financial management. For it is not uncommon to read media reports, almost on daily basis, about corruption, diversion of funds, mismanagement, misappropriation and misapplication of district assemblies common fund allocated to them by the central government for development purposes.

The purpose of this piece is to alert both the government and the district assemblies to take advantage of modern Information and Communications Technology (lCT) to eliminate ghosts and to make it difficult, if not impossible for them to find their way to manipulate district assemblies funds. Any nation or institution that allows itself to be by-passed by modern technology will have itself to blame.

Fortunately for this country, a Ghanaian IT firm, called Taxline Limited, has locally developed a new software christened District Assembly Revenue Management System (DARMS), specifically aimed at helping district assemblies not only to maximise revenue generation through tax collection but also to automatically take care of their financial management as well.

When DARMS was first demonstrated for this writer personally at the Taxline office in Accra, he could not believe his eyes. In fact, Sekyere West District Assembly in the Ashanti Region has already adopted the new software on pilot basis. Isn't that assembly smart?

Through DARMS, that assembly has been able to collect data on all kinds of business enterprises in the district within a record time.  According to Mr Sam B. Atakorah, Managing Director of Taxline Limited, the DARMS software has five major functions, technically known as modules. These include data collection, revenue collection, expenditure monitoring, personnel management as well as word processing.

Mr Atakorah revealed that in terms of personnel management, DARMS can provide details on all employees, their job specifications and appraisals, academic and professional backgrounds, their health and medical history and discipline in the past.

Automatic generation of bills and invoices so that the question of under-invoicing or over-invoicing will not occur at all. This is one of the wonderful things the software can do.  In fact, there are other vital functions, including confidential reports, debt management and several other mind-boggling problems that can be solved by the new technology.

What I find very fascinating about the DARMS software is that, if it is adopted and properly used by all the district assemblies, government will no longer have to solicit funds from its development partners in order to be able to conduct population census.

The DARMS software is also capable of keeping births and deaths data. There will be no need for the Electoral Commission to toil to display a bloated voters’ register and beg reluctant citizens to go and identify their dead relatives for their names to be deleted. The DARMS software will take good care of such dilemma right at the district level.

As a layman, this writer does not intend to pretend to know any better about this new technology than what the experts have told him.

 The only suggestion I would like to make is to remind all the 110 district assemblies in the country that for the government's philosophy of the Golden Age of Business to bear fruits for the benefit of ordinary people, they cannot continue to do things the way our ancestors did them.

 They must take advantage of Information and Communications Technology. They must find out whether DARMS could be the answer to their revenue generation challenges.

The author works with Information Services Department (ISD) abissath@gmail.com

This article was first published by the Daily Graphic on June 13, 2002