The National | Philip Ukuni | May 15, 2025
THE District Development Authority Act 2014, or DDA Act for short is a stumbling block to the Organic Law on Provincial and Local Level Government (LLG) Act (revised 1995).
The DDA Act seem to provide a legalised avenue for corruption to thrive.
It also contravenes with Organic Law on Provincial and Local Level Government Administration Act.
This legislation is the elephant in the room and yet we are so naive and ignorant of its function and its impact to the detriment of service delivery.
The famous words of late Sir Mekere Morauta on corruption being “systemic and systematic” seems to be a near perfect resemblance in this administrative dilemma.
The assistant district administrators (ADAs) and local level government, the third-tier level of government in the current system of government seem to operate independently from the DDA in the districts.
This has brought the LLG presidents to low and reduced to beggars in accessing their Local Level Government Service Improvement Programme funds (LLG SIP).
If they are in good terms with the local MP, who is automatically the chairman of the DDA, they can have their LLGSIP funds or other supports from the district office of the member.
If the DDA Act is abolished, the local MP can liaise with the LLG presidents in directly funding LLG Ward Development Programmes because this is where bulk of the rural population resides to access basic humanitarian services, (health/education).
The governor on the other hand who is mandated by majority of the voters in the province should have overall authority in the province in executing essential functions of the Provincial and Local Level Government Administration Act in harmony with certain provisions of the Provincial and Local Level Government Act in executing lawful functions in complying with and adhere to standard processes, procedures and policies in fairly allocating scarce resources and logistics in service delivery.
The respective Service Improvement Programme (SIP) funds, namely PSIP, DSIP and LLG SIP funds should be well coordinated and compensated under each other’s programme with the aim to effectively deliver basic services to the people.