Team set up to help resource newly created districts

Accra, Nov. 26, GNA - The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development has set up a task team to work out modalities to resource the=

newly created district assemblies. Mr Joseph Yieleh-Chireh, sector Minister, said the Ministry had note= d with concern the lack of infrastructure and logistics for the 60 new districts, 28 of which were created in 2004 and 32 in 2008. The Minister was responding to a question in Parliament on efforts being made to provide infrastructure for the new district assemblies with= out relying only on the Common Fund. Mr Yieleh-Chireh said the task team would consult with a wide variet= y of stakeholders and the private sector and then present a report before t= he end of the year to guide the Ministry on how to work on supporting the districts. In response to another question on when the Chief Owusu Sanitation a= rea in the Bantama constituency would see a facelift, the Minister said the infrastructure within the vicinity of the sanitary site was used to provi= de public toilet services for households without home toilet facilities and refuse collection services for people within the area. "Currently, there are two toilet facilities at the site, one water closet and one bucket latrine, which has been earmarked for demolishing t= o be replaced with water closet." He said the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) had given approval to= a request to construct a 20-seater water closet facility and a 10-compartme= nt public bath house at the site. "Furthermore, the Chief Owusu Sanitation Site has also been earmarke= d for improvement including the construction of the shed concrete hard-shoulder and landscaping for effective solid waste management under the City-Wide Solid Waste Collection scheme, which was recently introduced by=

the KMA." Mr Aquinas Quansah, Member of Parliament for Mfantsiman West, asked ab= out steps being taken to curb the rampant flooding of Yamoransa and its envir= ons during every raining season. The Minister said the Mfantsiman Municipal Assembly commissioned the Hydrological Services Department to undertake some studies in the area an= d reports indicated that the flooding was mainly caused by a culvert constructed on the main drain along the Yamoransa/Kumasi highway that is too small to accommodate the discharge in the streams passing through the are= a. He said to solve the problem a drain and culvert were to be construc= ted at a cost of 378,822.00 and 9,290.00 Ghana cedis respectively. He said the budget was beyond the assembly and it had therefore been=

forwarded to the Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing for consideration.