Sunyani, (B/A) Sept. 28, GNA- The Minister of Presidential Affairs and Chief of Staff, Mr. Kojo Mpiani has appealed to Members of Parliament (MPs) and District Chief Executives (DCEs) to resolve any conflicts among them since they have a common goal of working to improve the lives of their people.
He said although efforts have been made to find lasting solutions to some of the problems, conflicts still existed among some of them and cautioned that any DCE found to be at fault would be duly sanctioned. Mr. Mpiani made the statement at the opening of a three-day conference for Regional Ministers, Metropolitan/Municipal and District Chief Executives across the country. He reminded them of their roles as representatives of the government and their responsibility in coordinating administrative work of the region.
The Presidential Affairs Minister urged them to use the occasion as a platform to take stock of their activities and strategize ways forward for enhancing accelerated development. The Chief of Staff advised them to respect their traditional authorities and consult them in their day-to- day deliberations since they are the embodiment of wisdom to ensure the needed development of the people.
He urged them to consider wealth creation in their various assemblies to enable them to undertake major projects since power was vested in them 20 years ago through decentralization and the people were looking up to them for improvement in their lives. The Chief of Staff said the government was still committed to the needs of the people, adding that the government initiated the National Youth Employment programme and the National Health Insurance Scheme, among others and urged them to take advantage of these interventions to solve some of their problems.
Touching on sanitation which, he said, was a major problem of most of the assemblies, Mr. Mpiani called on the assemblies to find alternative ways converting waste to useful products and commend the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly for generating power out of liquid and solid waste and urged the rest to follow suit. Mr. Kwadwo Adjei-Darko, Minister of Local Government Rural Development and Environment, addressing participants, added his voice to the call on DCEs to consider themselves as representatives of the government and therefore should put up behaviours to portray them as such.
"If you are arrogant, ostentatious, power drunk, the citizens see the government that way; but if you are humble, caring, non selective as to who can approach you then people will see the government as such." He announced that the government has taken some initiatives to reform the decentralization process and added that some of the initiatives taken were the review and development of comprehensive decentralization policy, legal review which would address issues that have emerged with the implementation of the local government reforms and district development funding modality, among others. Mr. Adjei-Darko asked that emerging conflicts of functions between the internal auditor units and inspectorate division should be resolved immediately since they have district functions and as such should not be confused and assured them that presentations would be made to clarify matters to resolve all conflicts.
The sector Minister announced that Cape Coast and Tema were moving up to metropolitan status and the government, upon request from several traditional authorities and district assemblies was considering creating more districts and upgrading some of the districts to municipalities.
He said a framework for new management approach of markets in Ghana was being developed to meet the growing demand on urban development since markets stand out as the viable sources of revenue generated for most districts.
The Sector Minister stated that promotion of public-private partnership was being encouraged as a means of enhancing the potential of markets as source of income for the assemblies, traditional authorities farmers and market associations and expressed optimism that private participation would bring technical and managerial expertise to improve efficiency and respond to better consumer needs. The Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, Mr. Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, welcoming participants stated that although the government had pursued programmes, resulting in the provision of various projects, they needed such forums to re-examine the contents and scope of these development interventions to determine whether these developments were leading to reduction of unemployment, increased in productivity and increased in national and individual incomes.
He said what they have done so far was to focus development on infrastructure to deliver the immediate consumption services in education health and public administration adding that these services deserve attention given to them by the assemblies for the improvement of conditions of life and the satisfaction of human need. The Regional Minister suggested that they use the occasion to strategize to redirect development interventions towards the longer-term goals by reducing poverty and promote wealth creation. Mr. Baffour-Awuah used the occasion to express sympathy to the Northern flood victims and assured them that the region was solidly behind them and would do all they could to assist them. 29 Sept.
