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A TWO-DAY Capacity Building Seminar has been held in Kumasi to brief some selected Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) in the northern sector of the country on the State of Ghana�s Economy and the 20-point Consensus reached at the recently organized National Economic Forum in Senchi. The seminar, spearheaded by the Ministry of Finance in collaboration with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD), is aimed at sensitizing MMDCEs on the true state of affairs, as far as the economy was concerned and to also discuss into details, the agreement reached at the end of the National Economic Forum -dubbed �The Senchi Consensus�. The MMDCEs, selected from the Ashanti, Brong Ahafo and the three northern regions, also received tuition on best practices on public financial management, revenue mobilization and judicious use of resources to retain maximum benefit at the local level. As government representatives at the local level, the MMDCEs are also expected, at the end of the seminar, to acquire the needed knowledge on financial engineering through Public-Private Partnership(PPP) to fund developmental projects, in order to reduce the over reliance on the District Assembly Common Fund(DACF). Speaking at the official opening of the seminar, the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Hon. Julius Debrah, said the seminar would help to further deepen the concept of decentralization and to ensure efficiency in administration and development orientation. Hon. Debrah observed that once cabinet has approved the PPP policy as part of the decentralization process, the stage is now set for metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to explore dynamic ways of raising funds, including private partnerships, to fund development projects. He said the seminar therefore presents a fine opportunity for participants to upgrade their knowledge in financial administration and resource mobilization in order to help complement the effort of Central government. The Minister noted that MMDAs are the heartbeat of government, stressing that if the various assemblies do not push hard in terms of raising funds to embark on development programmes, the government�s efforts at achieving socio-economic progress will not be a reality. �You should know that as MMDCEs, the President relies on you so much to achieve the Better a Ghana Agenda and you cannot afford to fail; we need better roads, better waste management systems and value addition to our raw materials,� he noted. He said it was his expectation that in the next few years to come, government would realize the maximum benefit of the decentralization process by increasing the current 7.5% budget allocation to at least 10%. On the Senchi Consensus, the Minister noted that there was the need for the participants, most of whom could not participate in the forum to be briefed on the outcome so that they can understand it and effectively help in its implementation. Welcoming the participants to the region, the Ashanti Regional Minister, Dr. Samuel Sarpong, said MMDCEs� knowledge on the state of the economy and their ability to engage in effective financial administration and mobilization were critical to the development of the country. He said the conventional trickle down approach to fund acquisition must be a thing of the past, stressing that there is the need to embrace a bottom to top system whereby assemblies are able to generate their own funds and ensure its judicious management.