'You cannot just get up and say I have money so I am tarring a road' - Head of Local Government Service explains
The Head of the Local Government Service, Dr. Nana Ato Arthur, has clarified the conversations surrounding why it is important that even when private individuals want to fix their roads, they must get approval from a district assembly.
He explained that the fact that people have the means to be able to privately develop, for instance, unconstructed roads in their areas, doesn’t give them the automatic license to go about it.
Speaking with Etsey Atisu, Host of The Lowdown on GhanaWeb TV, he said that there is a procedure even for developing roads, just as it exists for land use.
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“If a citizen in a given area wants, let’s say, this 500meter road in front of our house tarred in the area, you have to go the assembly, get approval from the assembly, for the assembly to know that this road is being done privately by these residents along this corridor.
“You cannot just get up and say I live here, I have money, I am tarring this 5-10meter road – this stretch around our area, without approval from the assembly… yes, it is helping, but you can’t be doing things haphazardly because the assembly would have even come that this is the way this road has been designed… mind you, even when you have your piece of land and you want to put up a building, there are procedures,” he said.
Dr. Nana Ato Arthur was reacting to a recent report about how the Chief of Nahinso in the Ashanti Region, Nana Addo Boaman, was arrested by the Asokwa Municipal Assembly for undertaking road works without official permission.
This was after the chief said he had made several appeals to the authorities to address the poor road conditions, which he said had been leading to persistent flooding in his area, but without success.
AE
