Private Legal Practitioner, Kwame Gyan, has blamed the incompetence of the district and municipal assemblies to ensure the proper planning of settlements in the country.

According to him, the assemblies have failed to implement their mandate to properly plan settlements in their local jurisdictions leading to slum situations and unending land litigation cases.

This, he says, has brought the work of private developers to the fore when public agencies should have been the one directing the development of Ghana’s built environment.

He blamed the incapacity of the assemblies to fulfill their mandate on their inability to make their jurisdictions economically viable to support their operations.

This he says has been exacerbated by the politicization of the Municipal and District Chief Offices.

“But you know the people we put there, if you contest an election normally and you don’t win you’re made an MCE. In some cases if you’re a party chairman and you want it you get the first preference. So if the party chairman bounced it off then it goes to another person otherwise the party chairman will become MCE,” he said.

Referring to assemblies as miniature republics, he noted that it is integral that they are able to be self-sufficient in order to resource their operations.

Thus, he called for better qualified persons to be selected to lead assemblies instead of party cronies.

“This is supposed to be miniature republics so you should ensure that qualitatively, because the failures of the subdivision is what is also fueling the failure of the bigger division. So who is ensuring the planning function is delivered at the local level? Nobody.

“To the extent that even property taxation which should have been the base in terms of the economic viability of the assemblies have been taken away by the Ghana Revenue Authority because of the lack of capacity of the assemblies to collect property taxes,” he said.