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Opoku advises new assemblies to Come out with strategies for development

Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr Eric Opoku

The Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr Eric Opoku, has advised assembly members of the newly created district and municipal assemblies to come together and formulate strategies to accelerate their areas’  development efforts.

He stressed that it was through such efforts that they could catch up with the pace of development in the other established assemblies.

This was contained in a speech read on his behalf by the Deputy Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr Samuel Yaw Adusei, at the general meeting of the Asokore-Mampong Municipal Assembly at Asokore-Mampong chief's palace.

Mr Opoku emphasised that it was important for the members to make the municipality safe and secure, promote equal opportunity for livelihoods, provide excellent infrastructure and socio-economic services that were of good quality in content and coverage.  

He, however, noted that all these could be applicable only if they involved the people in whatever they would do as the assembly concept itself was to provide grassroot participation in decision making and decision implementation.

Mr Opoku was of the view that, the people must participate in the area of resource mobilisation and stressed that the chiefs, community leaders, rate payers and local governance structures being the zonal councils and unit committees should not be sidelined in the planning, budgeting and collection of levies.

The Asokore-Mampong Municipality was carved out of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) and inaugurated on June 28, 2012. 

The regional minister, who is also the acting municipal chief executive (MCE), emphasised that in order that power that had been devolved to the assembly at the district level was not monopolised, the three zonal offices at Asawasi, Aboabo and Adukrom should be opened without further delay. 

He, therefore, urged all the assembly members and the unit committee members to co-operate in that regard.

The acting MCE commended the executive committee and its sub-committees for working as required.

 He, however, advised that the secretaries of these sub-committees, who were technical people, should go beyond taking minutes and writing of reports and undertake research on the web in order to enrich the decisions of the sub-committees.

Mr Opoku said an examination of the period of July-December, 2012, income and expenditure statement showed that the internally generated fund (ITF) performed at 64.05 per cent with Gh¢ 83, 139.80 actually collected from a target of GH¢129, 793.30.

He also said for the 2013 target of GH¢512, 000.00, the IGF performed at 22.6 per cent with GH¢115, 504.10 collected at the end of April 2013.

Mr Opoku, therefore, urged the house to seriously consider the recommendations of the executive committee report to fine-tune the revenue collection machinery.

Regarding the District Assemblies Common Fund (DAC), Mr Opoku said out of the assembly's gross allocation of GH¢1, 238, 900.00 for 2012, net transfers amounted to GH¢514, 690.12, representing 41 per cent deductions, were made to cater for sanitation management, the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) programme and the MCE's official vehicle that had been delivered.

Story: Nana Yaw Barimah,

Asokore-Mampong

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