Don't make IRDP a cash cow - Minister cautions MMDCEs

The Minister of Local Gov­ernment, Decentralisation and Rural Development, Dan Botwe, has cautioned Met­ropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) against making the newly launched second phase of the Integrated Ru­ral Development Project (IRDP) another money making avenue.

According to Mr Botwe, MP, Okere, there must be accountabil­ity in the implementation of the project and same must be well tar­geted to the benefit of the people.

“The engineers, planners and other technical staff at the assemblies should be able to give accurate progress reports on the projects, and the MMDCEs must insist that this is done.

“People should be able to see, feel and experience the impact of the projects when they are com­pleted.

“Let it not just be another proj­ect that offers an opportunity for people to make money while the people suffer,” he stressed at the launch of the project in Accra on Wednesday.

The IRDP seeks to provide critical infrastructure and econom­ic empowerment to 23 deprived districts across the country.

The four components of the project are the provision of so­cio-economic infrastructure; the provision of credit to small-scale and medium enterprises (SMEs); outreach, sensitisation and capacity building, and management and coordination.

The US$24-million initiative which would span the 2022 to 2027, is partly being funded by OPEC Fund for International De­velopment (OFID), US$20 million, beneficiary districts, US$3.2 million and government, US$800,000.

The beneficiary districts are Tema West in the Greater Accra Region; Afigya Kwabre North, Sekyere Central, Offinso North and Sekyere Afram Plains, all in the Ashanti Region; and Okere, Akuapim South and Ayensuano in the Eastern Region.

Others are Assin North and Awutu Senya in the Central Region; Essikado-Ketan in the Western Region; Adaklu in the Vol­ta Region; Karaga in the Northern Region; Binduri in the Upper East Region, and Sunyani West and Wenchi in the Bono Region.

The rest are Techiman in the Bono East; Lambussie in Upper West; Akotombra in Western North; Krachi West in Oti; Asun­afo South in Ahafo; East Gonja in Savannah, and Chereponi in North East Region.

A former Vice-Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), and chairman of the occasion, Emeritus Professor Kwasi Kwafo Adarkwa, urged the implementers to put the plight of the people at the centre of the interventions.

“The voices of the beneficiaries are important, so let us keep that in focus when the projects are imple­mented,” he said.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Social Investment Fund, Justice Mensah Amankwah, on his part accounted that the first phase had been used to improve socio-eco­nomic infrastructure and services due to improved provision of 256 projects including 34 classroom blocks, 24 teachers’ quarters, two rural clinics, 22 maternity centres, 23 nurses’ quarters, 11 mechanised boreholes, three markets amongst others.