DCE urges assembly members to safeguard security

Lambussie (UWR), Aug. 30, GNA - Mr Clement Benin, Lambussie/Karni District Chief Executive, on Wednesday urged assembly members to place premium on the nurturing and safeguarding of the security of their people.

They should also extend such coverage to include economic empowerment programmes, which were traditionally perceived as having no bearing on security.

"What is required of us as members of the Assembly is to make sure that any policy that we pass is people-centred, aimed at eliminating conflict and fostering unity and teamwork".

Mr Benin was addressing members at the assembly's second ordinary meeting of the third session at Lambussie on Friday.

He reminded the members that security formed the base on which every human endeavour rests and that its effectiveness or otherwise had a direct relationship with the development of the District.

He tasked the assembly to scale up its development efforts to meet the aspirations of the people, saying: "That is the only way we can avoid petty squabbles and agitations which can degenerate into general disaster".

Mr Benin commended security agencies and other stakeholders operating in the District for their vigilance in the maintenance of peace.

He announced that as at the end of the second quarter of the year, the Assembly had mobilised a total of 67,772.70 Ghana Cedis internally, representing 85.4 per cent of the annual estimate of 79,300.00 Ghana Cedis.

It also received 194,460.08 Ghana Cedis as its share of the District Assemblies Common Fund for the first quarter of the year.

The District-Wide Assistance Programme (DWAP) supported the Assembly with 250,000.00 Ghana Cedis, which had been spent on the provision of four-unit classroom blocks at Piina Senior High School.

Part of the amount had also been used to build a Police Station at Lambussie, a Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) Compound at Kulkarni and teachers quarters at Samoa.

Mr Benin said UNICEF had drilled some boreholes for CHPS compounds at Chetu and Hiineteng as well as Kpare Primary School and Kuntawi community under its Water and Sanitation Programme (WASH).

Some KVIPs had also been provided for CHPS compounds at Chetu, Kpare, Suke Clinic and Hamile Primary School under the programme.

Mr Benin announced that the district had been earmarked for a Polyclinic under a special donor package and that the Assembly had sponsored 35 trainee-nurses and a doctor to come and man the facility after the completion of their courses.

He said the District Health Directorate received two ambulances from the International Centre for Enterprise and Sustainable Development (ICED), a non-governmental organisation to render services to the people.

He said 1,185 uniforms had been received and shared among 14 tailors to sew, after which they would be supplied to school children in the District.

Mr Benin announced that the World Food Programme was collaborating with the Ghana School Feeding Programme to expand the feeding programme to cover all basic schools in the District.

"The arrangement is that the Ghana School Feeding Programme will provide funds for one day in a week, whilst the World Food Programme provides food for the remaining four days", he explained.

Mr Benin said the Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty had paid cash grants of 12,760.00 Ghana Cedis to 323 beneficiaries in the District.

It covered the months of November and December 2009 and January, February and March 2010.