Shama District Assembly to award outstanding assembly members

The District Chief Executive of Shama, Mr. Joseph Amoah has said, the assembly will reward three of its members for their outstanding contributions towards local governance.

He explained that the initiative was the brainchild of the presiding member of the assembly, Mr Percy Ahenaquah to recognize assembly members for their exceptional contributions and to motivate them to give of their best to ensure effective local governance.

Mr Amoah said this at the District Assembly's 2020 composite budget approval meeting at Shama.

He applauded the efforts of the presiding member for such a vision, adding that, the names of the awardees would be announced on 7th October 2019 when the current assembly would be dissolved.

The DCE commended the Shama Cooperative Credit Union for supporting the awards scheme and called on other corporate bodies to join in championing the initiative.

He stressed that the awards did not negate the hard work of all assembly members since they all worked hard and expressed his profound gratitude for the support he received from the assembly.

Speaking on the budget meeting, Mr Amoah intimated that the budget approval was a constitutional mandate, in accordance with section 12 of the local government Act of 2016, Act (936).

He indicated that the budget which covered areas of health, education, sanitation, sports and other decentralised departments was presented to the Regional Coordinating Council and they were highly impressed with it and added that the executives had met to make the necessary amendments suggested by the board.

Mr Amoah stated that the budget catered for all areas that were likely to have demands and that provision was made for government initiatives such as the planting for food and jobs and planting for export and rural development.

The District Planning Officer, Alhaji Abu Mahama who explained the criteria used by the planning committee to select the awardees mentioned, regular and active at assembly meetings, ability to lobby for assembly projects, frequency of community engagements, frequency of community mobilisation for development, accountability, openness to one's community members and having a good relationship with the assembly as some of the things considered.

He said the planning committee also visited the communities of those who were selected and inspected projects they had undertaken in their various communities.

The planning officer said all the assembly members did a lot of work in their various electoral areas but that the committee's focus was on the impact of their activities in terms of accessibility, whether their activities generated revenue for the assembly and whether their activities exhibited certain objectives that addressed challenges that the assembly was facing.

He said community engagements were also conducted to solicit views of the public on the awardee this he noted was to ensure transparency in the selection process.