Creation of new districts is in fulfillment of NDC Manifesto -Azembe

Mr. Dominic Azumah Azembe, Minister of State in the office the President has said that the creation of new districts in the country was in fulfillment of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) agenda to accelerate the decentralization process.

Speaking at a ceremony at Bengure in the Upper East Region on Thursday to inaugurate the newly created Binduri District, he said a check of the Party’s manifesto revealed that the NDC Government had fulfilled almost all the promises made about the local government and decentralization sector.

“They have included the promise to strengthen the sub district structures which has been fulfilled by the passage of the LI 1967 that changed the Unit Committee from a geographical to a functional concept, made its jurisdiction conterminous with that of the electoral area and reduced the membership from 15 to 5”.

He said the promise “to strengthen and provide logistics for Assembly Members has been kept by the provision of over nine thousand motor bikes to Assembly members and an orientation programme for all assembly members”.

Mr. Azembe said the promise to publish the resources transferred from the Central Government to the District Assemblies to allow for effective monitoring had been kept through the publication in the newspapers of the annual allocations of both the District Assembly Common Fund and the District Development Facility.

Mr. Azembe urged the staff of the Binduri District Assembly which is already in place to take the opportunity of the spatial settlement planning to bring about better development, stressing “you have the opportunities to learn from the old Assemblies”.

“Sanitation and Waste Management which appear to be intractable problems for the older Districts should not be difficult for the new district to deal with, you have the revised Environmental Sanitation Policy 2010 to guide you”, the Minister stressed.

He said unlike the old Districts which were created in 2003 and 2007 without visible means of support, the new districts had started benefiting from Gh?42 Million seed capital approved by Parliament in the 2012 budget.

Mr Azembe said in order to deepen democracy and decentralization, government had adopted most of the recommendations of the CRC and said in the case of District Chief Executive positions, the President would nominate 5 persons to be interviewed by the Public Services Commission out of which the top 3 would be voted for in public a election by registered voters in the District to put to rest the perennial allegations of extorting money by Assembly Members before voting to approve the DCE.

Members of Parliament, he indicated would also be made to cease from being members of the Assembly and to focus mainly on their legislative duties.

The Paramount Chief of the Bawku Traditional Area, Naba Abugrago Azoka II, commended the government for the newly created District and advised the people in the area to live in peace to ensure development.**