Some district assemblies in the Northern Region are faced with inadequate staff to respond to the development needs of their people. The West Mamprusi District Planning Officer, Issifu Salifu, told a parliamentary team on a field oversight tour of the district last Tuesday that the assembly has come under pressure from the communities to provide them with their needs. "Civil societies are now telling the people to come to the assembly to demand for their needs but the assembly lacks the required staff capacity to respond to these needs." He mentioned some of the critical personal needed by the assemblies as engineers and planners officers. "There is the need to take a critical look at the staffing needs of District Assemblies to allow them champion full local development," he said. The parliamentary team is on field visits in some districts in the Northern and Upper East Regions to acquaint itself with the progress of the Canadian government assisted District Wide Assistance Project (DWAP). Mr Salifu said, "Inadequacy of staff tends to place a lot of burden on project management staff." He said the assembly had successfully executed 11 projects in eight communities since the inception of the DWAP in 2004 and named some of the projects as construction of clinics, nurses quarters, libraries, market stalls, classroom blocks and toilet facilities. The District Chief Executive, Sulemana Nabila said the DWAP has complemented other sources of funding in the provision of basic essential services to the people in the area. The Principal Northern Regional Planning Officer, Gregory Addah, said the Regional Coordinating Council was assisting the assemblies with capacity- building in project management. Earlier during the team’s visit to the Tolon Kumbugu District Assembly, the Acting Coordinating Director Chimsi Musah, complained of lack of engineer and planning officer for the assembly. The field oversight visit, is under the Canadian Parliamentary Centre Support Project Two and is aimed at strengthening the oversight responsibility of parliament to ensure transparency and accountability in governance. Source: Times