Zongo dev’t fund to have $50m – Ofori-Atta

The government has targeted seeding the Zongo Development Fund with $50million, Finance Minister-designate Ken Ofori-Atta has said.

Mr Ofori-Atta told parliament’s Appointment Committee on Friday, 20 January, that there are 365 Zongos (slums inhabited by mainly people of northern extraction and Muslims in the inner cities).

He said the Akufo-Addo government intends ensuring that inhabitants of Zongos get their economic circumstances improved since they deserve “a minimum threshold of livability”.

Answering questions about how the government intended delivering its $1million-per-constituency and one-district-one-factory promises, Mr Ofori-Atta said: “It does sound like a tall order but if you look at the current profile that we have of our expenditure, we are spending about maybe 15 per cent of our revenue, about $1.6billion on capital expenditure. So, for me, the issue of, let’s say, getting 275million reallocated to the constituencies sits the ground floor to be able to do the one-district-one-factory [project] and the beauty of that is that you are now looking at empowering the constituencies and/ or the districts for local problems with really local solutions in a way in which you then would have decentralised solutions to make sure that we do not shortchange anybody, so, the resources are there through efficiency and vigilance.”