The Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Joseph Yieleh Chireh, has called for an urgent dialogue on how to ensure uninterrupted development at the local level during political transition periods. That, he said, was necessary since the appointment of District, Municipal and Metropolitan Chief Executives (DMMCEs) took sometime thereby stalling work at the lo­cal levels. "Ideally, we would wish to have had these strategic ap­pointments in place right from the start but practically this is impossible, given the dictates of our constitutional and political reality", he said. Mr Chireh made the call at the launch in Accra of a handbook titled, "Introduction to Ghana's Local Government System". The 38-page booklet, published by the Institute of Local Government with support from the German Development Service (DED) and the Ministry of Local Government seeks to provide a ready reference on the country's local government system, the stakeholders and their respective roles in it. The occasion also saw the launch of a research report on the "Public Perception about Local Government in Ghana", a survey of four selected districts in the Northern Region which provides a kaleidoscopic view of the public's perception of the performance of the assemblies in the selected districts. He said combining the reality on the political transition and its truncation effect on local development and adminis­tration presented an unacceptable situation which needed to be addressed. Mr Chireh expressed the government's commitment to develop competent leadership at the local level to acceler­ate the decentralisation process. "We are committed to ensuring that all Chief Executives or our local governments undertake structure training in institutions", he said. . On the publications, the Minister commended the ILGS for their contribution towards the promotion of local governance in the country and said the publications were timely. He said with the introduction of the booklet, new local government practitioners would be guided in the discharge of their duties and it would also serve as a refresher material for other stakeholders in the sector. Mr Chireh spoke highly of the report saying, "it repre­sents critical feedback for the assemblies in question, and also for all assemblies, which they must carefully review and reflect on." "Reviewing the decentralisation process is now inevi­table if our objective is to develop solutions that respond appropriately to the dynamics of our local challenges", the Minister said. The Director of the Institute, Dr Esther Ofei-Aboagye, said the publications were part of the core functions of the institute. She said that Institute was committed to managing knowledge, contributing to intellectual development in public administration as well as innovations in policy and practice of local governance in the country. Dr Ofei-Aboagye acknowledged the tremendous assistance the Institute had been receiving from DED and said it had made significant contribution to the institute's ongoing activities. Source: Ghanaian Times