Forum to strengthen capacity of MMDCEs ends
A two-day sensitisation forum, aimed at building the capacity of metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives to adopt and implement some development agenda of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, has ended in Accra.
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The meeting, which brought together 216 chief executives, deliberated on sanitation as a public concern; how to operationalise the National Sanitation Day, enforcement of sanitation by-laws, job creation, and a model of sanitation by-laws.
The participants also arrived at a consensus which would require chief executives to take full responsibility and ensure that all refuse gathered at the next national clean-up exercise is cleared promptly.
Addressing the participants at the closing ceremony, the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Julius Debrah, said Ghana had remained a vibrant democracy and appealed to Ghanaians to exercise patience with the government to deliver on its mandate.
“As a government, we believe that we own the right to roll whatever decision we take for the people”, he said, acknowledging that while times were tough, the government had resolved to meet the expectation of the people.
“Like the journey of the Israelites when they were promised by God that He was moving them out of Egypt to the promised land, immediately everybody thought it was going to be a day’s journey but we all know the history.
“Definitely, we shall arrive at whatever we have promised Ghanaians before the next general elections.
“Though the journey may be difficult, let me, on behalf of the President, assure the people that we shall arrive with the Lord’s support,” Mr Debrah said.
Sanitation
The minister stated that sanitation was today a public health issue which required all Ghanaians to help manage it properly to curb the needless outbreaks of epidemics that often claim lives.
He indicated that after the first national clean-up exercise, a lot of lessons had been learnt to improve on the subsequent one on December 6, this year.
“We have tasked chief executives to ensure that the next exercise becomes more successful and we hope that our traditional and religious leaders and the general populace would join hands to support it,” he appealed.
Enforcement of by-laws
Mr Debrah said chief executives had been tasked to ensure that sanitation by-laws in the respective areas are adhered to and strictly applied to the latter.
He also said a model sanitation by-law, aimed at formalising subsequent national sanitation exercise would soon be issued by the ministry to be adopted and ratified by the various metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies per their local situations.
Responsibility
The minister said the chief executives at the meeting arrived at a consensus that required them to take full responsibility for the prompt collection of all refuse during the upcoming national clean-up exercise.