New district to created within Sunyani Municipality

Sunyani (B/A), May 8, GNA- The Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment is to create a new district within the Sunyani municipality to help generate and mobilize enough revenue to facilitate the pace of development.

The Ministry is also considering elevating the municipality into a metropolitan status.

Mr. Stephen Asamoah-Boateng, sector Minister, disclosed this when he interacted with the staff, heads of department and assembly members of the Sunyani Municipal and Berekum district assemblies at separate forums on Monday.

The Minister is on a four-day working tour of selected districts in Brong-Ahafo to inspect some on-going projects.

He explained that the district capital of the intended new district would likely be Chiraa or Nsoatre and appealed to the leadership and people of both areas to eschew attitudes that could mar the decision. Mr. Asamoah-Boateng said the creation of the new district was to ensure the development of the areas and the region as a whole, noting that, "fighting for the location of the district capital will lead to unnecessary tensions and disorder".

He commended the Sunyani Municipal Assembly for the high standard of environmental cleanliness and advised the Assembly to impress on house owners and public institutions to ensure that they paint their structures at least twice a year.

Mr. Asamoah-Boateng said plans were underway for the Ministry to provide more resources to enable urban, area and town councils to function effectively, while ensuring that local administration was transformed through local government system.

He disclosed that the Local Government Ministry was to reduce the number of assembly and unit committee members so they could obtain more support and assistance to encourage them to work hard.

Mr. Asamoah-Boateng challenged metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to include the local people, particularly traditional authorities in the signing of contractual projects so that they could put pressure on contractors to complete such projects on schedule. Mr. Asamoah-Boateng later inspected the projects, which includes a 650 million cedis guesthouse, a 500 million cedis court building, a 460 million cedis health insurance building and a 470 million cedis staff quarters being constructed by the Sunyani Municipal Assembly. At Berekum he inspected a four billion cedis newly completed small town water project at Jinjini funded by the district assembly. Mr. Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, Regional Minister, who accompanied the Minister, stressed the importance of modernizing waste collection and to tackle the problem of environmental degradation.

Mr. Asamoah-Boateng will also visit Wenchi, Tain, Atebubu/Amantin, Pru, Nkoranza districts and Techiman municipality. 8 May 07