AMA holds town hall meetings at Ayawaso sub-metro
The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has held three town hall meetings in the Ayawaso Sub-metropolitan district aimed at engaging its stakeholders to help design an effective plan to enable it to achieve its Long-term National Development Policy Framework (LTNDPF).
Advertisement
The meetings were held at the Ayawaso Central, Ayawaso East and Ayawaso West sub-metros.
The assembly’s development policy framework, which spans from the period 2018-2057, be implemented through a series of four-year Medium-term Development Plans (MTDPs), with the first to be implemented from 2018-2021.
According to the Public Relations Officer of the AMA, Numo Blafo III, the community engagements were necessary in designing the development plans, adding that it was mandatory on the part of the assembly to organise such meetings.
He said other meetings would be held in the other seven sub-metros in the metropolis to solicit opinion from the community members.
Town hall meetings
The meetings brought together Members of Parliament (MPs), assembly members, sub-metro directors, landlords and landladies associations and a cross-section of people who expressed their concerns and suggestions to the authorities.
The community engagement included presentations by community members and discussions on ways to fulfil the needs and aspirations of the communities.
Participants called for learning centres in their communities to encourage the habit of reading among their children.
They added that there was the need for more drains to be constructed to solve the problem of flooding.
{loadmodule mod_banners,Nativead1}
Public participation
In an interaction with journalists, the Director of the Metro Development Planning Unit of AMA, Mr Richard Kwame Oduro, explained that community participation was an essential and integral part of the effective development planning, thus the need for the community engagement.
He said the development plan from 2013 to 2017 resulted in the construction of schools, roads, drains and toilet facilities, installation of street lights and the provision of potable water.
“There has also been some improvement in revenue collection by sub-metros,” he added.