Ga Central MCE affirms commitment to govt policies
The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of the Ga Central Municipal Assembly, Dr Emmanuel Lamptey, has affirmed the commitment of the assembly to implement government’s development policies to the satisfaction of the people.
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In line with this goal, he assured that the assembly was ready to take advantage of the Planting for Food and Jobs programme to alleviate poverty in the municipality.
Dr Lamptey was speaking at the municipality’s stakeholders meeting on Medium-Term Development Plan (MTDP) that was held at the assembly premises in Accra last Monday.
Meeting
The meeting, which brought together stakeholders within the municipality, highlighted challenges that confronted the various communities within the municipality.
The challenges included poor security system, poor sanitation, low revenue generation, bad roads and encroachment of lands.
Social policy
“As an MCE, I am here to represent the central government. Therefore, whatever social policy the government has for the people, we at the assembly are going to implement them in the municipality,” he assured.
On the Planting for Food and Jobs programme, the MCE indicated that even though the assembly did not have land within the municipality, it had initiated discussions with other assemblies to go into partnership to acquire arable land for the cultivation of certain crops, notably sunflower from which oil could be extracted.
Dr Lamptey said the cultivation of sunflower had many uses and, therefore, the assembly was going to place premium on its cultivation and set up an oil extraction facility to extract the oil for commercial purposes.
He further disclosed that other crops would be cultivated by the assembly to enable the unemployed youth get access to jobs.
“My main focus is to ensure that apart from the municipal services that we are providing, we decentralise government policies and programmes within the municipality,” he said.
Revenue generation
On generating revenue for the municipality, Dr Lamptey said the assembly had planned to construct a water extraction facility to support the district enterprise programme.
That, he believed, would generate additional source of revenue and also reduce the financial pressure on the assembly.
“With the district enterprise programme, we want to have a water extraction facility within the municipality. The raw material that we have here is the large aquifer of underground water and, therefore, we are going to harness that particular resource to produce sachet and bottled water to generate additional revenue for the assembly,” he stated.
On security, Dr Lamptey believed that issues about security were paramount and essential, therefore, he had put together certain mechanisms to ensure the safety of the people and properties.
Achievements
Delivering the medium term development plan for the last four years, the Planning Officer at the Ga Central Municipal Assembly, Mr Kwame Brefo, said the assembly as of June 2017 had completed 482 development projects out of the 825.
While 102 developmental projects were ongoing, he revealed that 379 had been implemented.
According to him, some of the challenges that confronted the assembly included land, attitude of the people, inadequate revenue, traditional leadership dispute and encroachment of lands.