Ho District Assembly nearly called off

Ho Jan. 22, GNA - The calm disposition of Mr Mawutor Goh, Ho District Chief Executive (DCE), and the arrival of Mr Kofi Dzamesi, deputy Volta Regional Minister on the nick of time, prevented organisers of the Ho district People's Assembly from calling off the event on Wednesday due to the absence of Ministers of state scheduled to address the function.

Togbe Adase IV, Chief of Ho-Ahoe, suggested that the meeting should be called off because according to him without the government officials who could answer pertinent questions such as those on the dismal performance of senior secondary schools in the Volta Region was "a useless venture" and should be called off.

Mr Goh accepted concerns expressed by the chief and other participants, that the absence of the ministers could affect the effectiveness of the People's assembly.

The deputy minister, however, explained that officials from Accra cancel their trip to enable them to make inputs into the President's Session Address to Parliament on Thursday.

He said also Mr Kwasi Owusu-Yeboa, the Volta Regional Minister was in Nkwanta to address a similar Assembly.

Mr Dzamesi who earlier on in the day addressed the People's Assembly at Akatsi had arrived to calm the agitated participants.

He said physical evidence of government programme for the provision of infrastructure was represented in the ongoing Tema-Aflao, Kpando-Dambai, Kadjebi-Breweniase roads rehabilitation and the decision to construct the Sogakope-Adidome-Fume roads on piecemeal basis.

He government's sincerity in tackling the Sogakope-Adidome-Fume road was exhibited by making the first payments ever to the contractor on the job soon after it came to power.

Mr Dzamesi said projects in the region over the three years of the government's tenure, far surpassed those initiated between 1992 and 2000.

He said in the Akatsi district, the number of projects executed between 1992 and 2000 were 38 while those between 2001 and 2003 were 108. In the Kete-Krachi district, while 38 projects were initiated between 1992 and 2000, 84 were executed between 2001 and 2003.

On corruption, Mr Dzamesi said government was aware that bribe taking was rampant and promised that the problem would be tackled.

He said the government's slogan of "zero tolerance for corruption" was not a fluke and that the strategy was for government to fight the incidence at the top for other citizens to emulate.

Mr Dzamesi said government's efforts in curtailing corruption was clearly shown by its ability to prune cost of one kilometre of asphalt road construction from 400,000 dollars to a little over 200,000 dollars for the same thickness and quality.

He said the fallen standards of education in the region were due to the inability of the Ghana Education Service (GES) to do any meaningful supervision of schoolwork.

Concerns raised by about 25 contributors included provision of traffic lights for Ho, need for education fund and the need for the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD) to review its decision to pass on the payment of salaries of core staff of Area Councils to District Assemblies.