The Local Government (Departments of District Assemblies) (Commencement)
Instrument, 2009 (“the Instrument”) seeks to operationalise the decentralized
departments at the district level as the Departments of the District Assemblies (DAs).
Under section 161 (1) of the Local Government Act, 1993, Act 462,22 decentralized departments at the district level are to cease to exist in their present form and then reconstituted through a series of mergers into 16 Departments in the Metropolitan Assemblies, 13 in the Municipal Assemblies and 11 in the District Assemblies under section 38 of the Act.
However, under section 164 of Act 462, the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development was vested with the power to determine when the old Departments were to cease to exist and the new Departments come into existence.
Section 164 provides as follows: “The Minister of Local Government] shall by legislative instrument prescribe the date for the coming into force of sections 38 and 161 of this Act.”
It is significant to note that section 38 (2) of Act 462 envisages the implementation of the composite budget system under which the budget of the
Departments of the District Assemblies are to be integrated into the budgets of the District Assemblies. It also provides that “Each District Assembly shall be responsible for the preparation, administration and control of the budgetary allocations of the Departments specified in the First Schedule to this Act”.
It is equally significant to note that section 161 (3) of Act 462 envisaged the
creation of the Local Government Service to which the staff of the newly established Departments of the District Assemblies were to become members. For ease of reference, section 161 (3) provided that “The members of staff of the branches, divisions and units of the Departments or organisations specified in the Eighth Schedule to this Act shall be transferred to the relevant Department of the District Assembly and they shall form part of the Local Government Service when established”
