"Government should create environment for economic improvement", Agyekum

Boti Falls (Eastern Region), 14th April ?99 ?

The best thing a winning political party could do is to create an enabling environment for the people to improve upon their economic conditions and not to distribute money to the electorate.

Mr J. W. Agyekum, Eastern Regional Secretary of the National Democratic Congress, said this at a seminar for NDC activists and constituency executives of the Yilo Krobo branch of the party at Boti Falls on Tuesday. He urged the party's activists to take advantage of the various economic programmes initiated by the government to improve upon their living standards.

Mr Kwesi Dankyi, Eastern Regional second vice-chairman, advised people in the rural communities who benefit from the poverty alleviation programmes of district assemblies to invest their loans in plant and machinery.

Mr Dan Tekpertey, Member of Parliament for Yilo Krobo, said Members of Parliament are not implementors of development projects but are rather the facilitators. He said at the moment, development projects in the constituencies are routed through the district assemblies and regretted that the electorate do not appreciate the role of MPs who are wrongly accused of not providing their communities with development projects.

In a resolution adopted later, the members asked the government to urgently find solution to the poor drainage system at Somanya Zongo which contributes in large measure to the collapse of buildings in the area. The resolution appealed to the government to pay urgent attention to the rehabilitation of the Somanya-Adjiko-Asite road, Brukum- Tsretsom, Brukum-Maumi, Akorley-Agbodzi and Perpetifi-Samlesi feeder roads,which are all within the Yilo Krobo constituency.

It congratulated the government for the tact with which it resolved the nurses and junior doctors strike action and appealed to the government to implement the decisions reached in the memoranda of understanding with them.