MINUTES OF THE FIRST QUARTER MUNICIPAL PLANNING CO-ORDINATING UNIT MEETING HELD ON THURSDAY, 24^TH APRIL, 2025 AT THE MUNICIPAL ASSEMBLY HALL.

WELCOME ADDRESS:

The Municipal Planning Officer, Mr. Henry Daniels welcomed all members to the first quarter meeting of the Municipal Planning Co-Ordinating Unit (MPCU) meeting.  He outlined the main agenda for the meeting being the presentation and discussion of new updates on the District Development Data Platform (DDDP) data entry.

 READING, CORRECTION AND ADOPTION OF PREVIOUS MINUTES

 Members took time to read through the previous minutes for corrections and omissions. After a thorough reading, there were no corrections made.

The Municipal Social Welfare Officer, Mr. Augustine Atigah moved a motion for the acceptance and adoption of the previous minutes as the true reflection of the discussions and decisions of the MPCU. The motion was seconded by Mr. Eric Tweneboah, the Municipal Human Resource Manager.

MATTERS ARISING OUT OF THE PREVIOUS MINUTES

The MPCU secretariat compiled the various unit and departmental reports in to the Assembly’s first quarter progress report for onward submission to relevant stakeholders.

BUSINESS OF THE DAY

PRESENTATION ON THE 2024 ANNUAL PROGRESS REPORT

The Municipal Development Planning Officer took the opportunity to update members on the composite annual progress report of the Assembly.

He said the Assembly planned and approved a total of 101 programs and projects under six development dimensions in 2024 to facilitate the achievements of its medium-term goal of coordinating development policies and strategies and to manage the decentralised planning system for the timely preparation and effective implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development plans at all levels.  

Programs and projects for the year were categorised to meet these dimensions and in line with the sustainable development goals and the agenda for jobs. A review of activity implementation by the Assembly shows that 97 (96.04%) of the 101 planned activities were executed in 2024 leading to about 70.22 percent implementation of the 2022-2025 MTDP as shown in the Table below.

S/N	Development Dimension	2022		2023		2024
		Plan	Exec	Plan	Exec	Plan	Exec
	ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT	21	19	26	24	17	17
	SOCIAL SERVICE DEVELOPMENT	41	40	31	30	28	27
	ENVIRONMENT, INFRASTRUCTURE & HUMAN SETTLEMENT	16	11	18	17	27	25
	EMERGENCY PLANNING AND RESPONSE	0	0	8	7	4	4
	GOVERNANCE, CORRUPTION & PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY	15	15	16	14	19	18
	IMPLEMENTATION, COORDINATION AND MONITORING AND EVALUATION (ICME)	0	0	9	9	6	6
	Total	93	85	108	101	101	97

The MPO admonished members to always complete all templates that are sent to them relation to the progress reports. This is because once that templates are not filled it makes the progress reports incomplete, thereby affecting its quality and the overall ranking of the Assembly.

PRESENTATION ON THE 2026-2029 PLANNING GUIDELINES

Mr. Patrick Teye Okletey, an Assistant Development Planning Officer with the assistance of Mr. Godson Hiamey. Assistant Statistician led the presentation on the implementation and utilization of the District Development Data Platform (DDDP).

The objectives of the Training were to enable MPCU members ensure the availability and accessibility of reliable administrative data for continuous usage and decision-making at the local level; train members on leveraging the DDDP’s analytical tools to identify trends and patterns within the district; empower them to respond effectively to community needs, and foster an understanding of how to integrate data-driven approaches into local government operations to enhance the efficiency and impact of social service delivery.

He gave a brief background to the DDDP implementation since 2019 with the addition of new functionalities in collaboration with NDPC, GSS, MLGDRD and the support of GIZ, UNCDF, KFW, and Canada. The DDDP is a web-based planning, monitoring and evaluation and reporting platform designed to improve on database management, data-driven decision making and reporting at district level and sub-district level as well as track district performance to service delivery. DDDP aims to make data accessible and transparent to the public through the future public portal.

The platform currently has about 47 trackers with 9 browser interfaces for data entry and analysis.

Some of the trackers with timeline updates elaborated upon included;

1. Annual Action Plan: it gives an update on whether an action plan has been approved or not and also indicates changes in the budget revision of plans during mid-year review.
2. Bill tracker: updates on actions taken against defaulted rate payers.
3. Decisions and Complaints: it records action taken by management on the decisions, recommendations and or complaints from statutory meetings including general Assembly, Public Relation and Complaint Committee (PRCC) meetings etc.
4. Meeting tracker: it involves upload of additional essential documents related to statutory meetings held. These include invitation letters, minutes, pictures, attendance, payment vouchers (PVs), dispatch etc.
5. Permit Request tracker: it tracks whether an application for permit has been approved or not and the means of communicating such feedback to the applicant(s).
6. Project and Program: update on the progress of all developmental projects including reports of site meetings, project stage, contingency provisions among others.

Overview of navigation tools on the District Development Data Platform.

• Bulk upload Application: the application allows users to download an excel form from the platform and make all entries offline before feeding the system with the bulk data. The only reservation here is that data exported through this form has not achieved its intended purpose since the data does not reflect on the tracker platform.
• Line Listing Application: this is a reporting tool on the DDDP which allows users to generate and save tabular reports for decision making purposes.
• Data Visualizer Application: the data visualizer, just like the line listing, presents reports in only graphical form for informed management decisions.
• Data Entry Application: this application has the features of the main trackers, however, entry on this browser captures numerical characters or quantitative elements only.
• Report Builder Application: this scenario involves creating Annual Performance Report that consolidates data for the entire year.

Decisions from the presentation:

Data entry: the Municipal Co-ordinating Director urged all heads of units and departments to take keen interest in the data entry on the District Development Data Platform. She further asked for collaboration in obtaining and upload of supporting documents onto the system.

Timestamp entry: members were urged to promptly make data entries as and when programs and activities fall due since the assessments will be based on timestamp basis.

Network Connectivity: the bowser does not connect to the Assembly’s Wi-Fi, hence the need to provide bundle data for its operationalization.

ANY OTHER BUSINESS

The Municipal Development Planning Officer, informed members to kindly submit their first quarter reports on time to help the MPCU secretariat prepare and submit the Assembly’s first quarter progress report to the relevant stakeholders.

CLOSING REMARKS

The Municipal Development Planning Officer in his closing remarks thanked all for their active participation during the presentation and discussions.

CLOSING

A motion for closure of the meeting was moved by Mr. Augustine Atigah, Social Welfare Officer and was seconded by Mr.  E.K Agyei, the Municipal Physical Planning Officer.  The meeting ended at exactly 2:00pm with a closing prayer by Mr. Fredrick Osei, the director of NADMO.