OPEC to provide 7 million dollars for SIF

Accra, June 2, GNA - Professor George Gyan-Baffour, Deputy Minister of Finance, on Thursday said as soon as the modalities for the disbursement of the OPEC Fund of seven million dollars under the Social Investment Fund (SIF) were completed, funds would be made available for the smooth implementation of all ongoing projects including those in North Dayi

He said there had been a slow down in the activities of SIF after the first phase of the project financed by African Development Fund (ADF) and OPEC ended in 2004.

The Deputy Minister of Finance said these in an answer to a question by MP for North Dayi, Akua Sena Dansua, who wanted to know the status of the SIF and when funds would be released for the implementation of projects in North Dayi.

Prof. Gyan-Baffour said SIF had approved 1,047 sub-projects amounting to 19.49 million dollars of which 772 of the projects had been fully completed while 247 were under various stages of completion with 28 yet to be implemented.

The projects include classroom blocks, staff quarters, nutrition centres, rural health facilities, irrigation, agro-processing, skills development and maintenance of farm to market roads. He said out of the 12 sub-projects in the Kpando District, 11 were in North Dayi alone of which five had been completed and handed over to the District Assembly.

Prof. Gyan-Baffour said a sixth project at Fesi was about 95 per cent completed while contractors had abandoned two other sub-projects at Anfoega-Wadaxeme and Anfoega-Dzana.

"The delays in the implementation of sub-projects are often associated with the inability of the local community on the one hand and the Kpando District Assembly on the other to generate the required 10 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively, as marching funds. "As I speak, the communities still owe SIF an amount of 118,129,087 cedis and these delays in payments have affected the last three sub-projects thus requiring a review of the contract sum." 02 June 05