Member of Parliament (MP) for Mpraeso Davis Ansah Opoku, has asked the Local Government Services to employ and engage the services of legal practitioners at all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs).

According to him, the move will help minimise or curb the perennial issue of contract and procurement irregularities at the assemblies.

Mr Ansah Opoku noted that during their engagements with the assemblies, it became clear that there is a general lack of legal understanding in the assemblies, a situation he intimated has played a key role in numerous irregularities captured in the Auditor-General’s report.

“Mr Speaker, we realised that a number of the MMDAs, especially the newly-created districts have little knowledge about the nature of agreements entered on their behalf between the Local Government Ministry and the Zoomlion Company Limited.”

“Even though the Committee met with Zoomlion and they gave us vivid explanations and we realised that they are even doing a bit of favor, it brings to bare the need for our local assemblies to have personnel who understand legal issues.

“So I think the time is now for the Local Government Ministry or the Local Government Service to employ lawyers in all district assemblies to ensure that we do away with contract irregularities, procurement and store irregularities and even with the tax irregularities that continue to find in the Auditor-Generals Report.”

The Deputy Ranking Member on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) made the call in Parliament on Friday, July 1 when the Committee presented its findings to the House.