Funding challenges affect newly created districts - Minister

Mr Akwasi Opong-Fosu, Minister for Local Government and Rural Development has bemoaned funding challenges as some of the constraints affecting newly created districts in the country.

He said this had resulted in renting private apartments for official accommodation which came at a cost to the nation; and assured that very soon construction works on official accommodation would begin in all the newly created districts.

Mr Opong-Fosu expressed these in Tamale on Monday during a meeting with various heads of departments including Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives as part of his two-day tour of the Northern Region.

He said in 2012, the Ministry released GH¢100,000 to each of the 46 newly created districts to purchase equipment as part of the fund promised by the Government.

Mr Opong-Fosu said the Ministry as part of fulfilling its developmental goals, allocated various sums of money to some Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs), adding that, arrangements were being finalized to award contracts to construct new office accommodation for districts assemblies.

He said the District Development Facility (DDF) and the Urban Development Grant (UDG) formed part of the projects where GH¢36,806,651 had been released to all the ten regions with the Northern Region receiving GH¢54, 404,783.20.

According to him, Government was implementing a five-year project dubbed, “the Ghana Social Opportunities Project” at the cost of 89.1 million dollars funded by the World Bank to improve the standards of MMDAs.

Mr Bede Ziedeng, Northern Regional Minister said the region recently completed the appointment and endorsement of all district chief executives with a 100% success to ensure development.

He added that decentralization was developing positively across the country in compliance with the laid down legal processes to position the assemblies to perform up to expectation.