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Chief of Staff urges MPs, DCEs to
resolve conflicts
Sunyani, (B/A) Sept. 28, Ghanadot/GNA- The Minister of
Presidential Affairs and Chief of Staff, Mr. Kojo Mpiani has
appealed to Members of Parliament (MPs) and District Chief
Executives (DCEs) to resolve any conflicts among them since
they have a common goal of working to improve the lives of
their people.
He said although efforts have been made to find lasting
solutions to some of the problems, conflicts still existed
among some of them and cautioned that any DCE found to be at
fault would be duly sanctioned.
Mr. Mpiani made the statement at the opening of a three-day
conference for Regional Ministers, Metropolitan/Municipal
and District Chief Executives across the country.
He reminded them of their roles as representatives of the
government and their responsibility in coordinating
administrative work of the region.
The Presidential Affairs Minister urged them to use the
occasion as a platform to take stock of their activities and
strategize ways forward for enhancing accelerated
development.
The Chief of Staff advised them to respect their traditional
authorities and consult them in their day-to- day
deliberations since they are the embodiment of wisdom to
ensure the needed development of the people.
He urged them to consider wealth creation in their various
assemblies to enable them to undertake major projects since
power was vested in them 20 years ago through
decentralization and the people were looking up to them for
improvement in their lives.
The Chief of Staff said the government was still committed
to the needs of the people, adding that the government
initiated the National Youth Employment programme and the
National Health Insurance Scheme, among others and urged
them to take advantage of these interventions to solve some
of their problems.
Touching on sanitation which, he said, was a major problem
of most of the assemblies, Mr. Mpiani called on the
assemblies to find alternative ways converting waste to
useful products and commend the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly
for generating power out of liquid and solid waste and urged
the rest to follow suit.
Mr. Kwadwo Adjei-Darko, Minister of Local Government Rural
Development and Environment, addressing participants, added
his voice to the call on DCEs to consider themselves as
representatives of the government and therefore should put
up behaviours to portray them as such.
“If you are arrogant, ostentatious, power drunk, the
citizens see the government that way; but if you are humble,
caring, non selective as to who can approach you then people
will see the government as such.”
He announced that the government has taken some initiatives
to reform the decentralization process and added that some
of the initiatives taken were the review and development of
comprehensive decentralization policy, legal review which
would address issues that have emerged with the
implementation of the local government reforms and district
development funding modality, among others.
Mr. Adjei-Darko asked that emerging conflicts of functions
between the internal auditor units and inspectorate division
should be resolved immediately since they have district
functions and as such should not be confused and assured
them that presentations would be made to clarify matters to
resolve all conflicts.
The sector Minister announced that Cape Coast and Tema were
moving up to metropolitan status and the government, upon
request from several traditional authorities and district
assemblies was considering creating more districts and
upgrading some of the districts to municipalities.
He said a framework for new management approach of markets
in Ghana was being developed to meet the growing demand on
urban development since markets stand out as the viable
sources of revenue generated for most districts.
The Sector Minister stated that promotion of public-private
partnership was being encouraged as a means of enhancing the
potential of markets as source of income for the assemblies,
traditional authorities farmers and market associations and
expressed optimism that private participation would bring
technical and managerial expertise to improve efficiency and
respond to better consumer needs.
The Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, Mr. Ignatius
Baffour-Awuah, welcoming participants stated that although
the government had pursued programmes, resulting in the
provision of various projects, they needed such forums to
re-examine the contents and scope of these development
interventions to determine whether these developments were
leading to reduction of unemployment, increased in
productivity and increased in national and individual
incomes.
He said what they have done so far was to focus development
on infrastructure to deliver the immediate consumption
services in education health and public administration
adding that these services deserve attention given to them
by the assemblies for the improvement of conditions of life
and the satisfaction of human need.
The Regional Minister suggested that they use the occasion
to strategize to redirect development interventions towards
the longer-term goals by reducing poverty and promote wealth
creation.
Mr. Baffour-Awuah used the occasion to express sympathy to
the Northern flood victims and assured them that the region
was solidly behind them and would do all they could to
assist them.
GNA
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