Project to empower vulnerable launched in Lower Manya Krobo 

The Youth and Women Empowerment (YOWE) project, a non-governmental organisation ( NGO) in Lower Manya Krobo, has launched a Gender and Social Inclusion ( MESI) project at Odumase-Krobo with a call on all stakeholders to get involved in local governance processes for the accelerated development of the area.

The Lower Manya Krobo Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Mr Simon Kweku Tetteh, made the call when he launched the project at Odumase-Krobo.

The same project was also launched at Asesewa by the DCE for the Upper Manya Krobo District, Mr Felix Odjao.

The year-long project will be sponsored by STAR-Ghana.

Project goal

The overall outcome of the project is to increase participation and involvement of the vulnerable and marginalised in society in local governance.

The MCE noted that  qualified people did not get involved in the local governance process in the Lower Manya KroboMunicipality which had affected the contribution of assembly members in some of the electoral areas.

He explained that the assembly members needed to understand what went on at the assembly to give a feed back to the electorates.

He said those who were qualified  to stand for elections were not interested and some of the members who represented their respective electoral areas  also could not perform well  enough to bring issues from their various electoral areas for redress.

‘’I want to open the local governance concept wider to involve every citizen of the municipality and it behoves  all of us to get involved in the process so that together we can lift the image of the area up,” Mr Tetteh stressed.

The MCE said the District Assembly Common Fund ( DACF) that came quarterly from  the government was not enough to cater for all the needed development projects in the various electoral areas and asked the people to willingly pay their levies  to enable the assembly to perform.

IGF

He explained that when the budget officer puts all the need assessments of the municipality together, the assembly needed more revenue in the form of Internally Generated Funds (IGF)  to carry out the various projects and pleaded with all participants to educate the citizens on the need to pay their property rates and other related levies to generate more revenue for the assembly.   

‘’Encourage the whole populace and the youth in particular to participate in local governance so as to help me change the face of leadership in Lower Manya Krobo to succeed,’’ the MCE added.

The Director of YOWE, Mr Emmanuel Nuertey Siakwa, said the project sought to address the needs of the excluded in society.  Therefore, all the vulnerable groups indentified would be empowered  to engage their various municipal and district assemblies so that local governance would be strong at the grass-roots level.

He said the participants who were the ‘’disciples’’ of the project should also disseminate the message of the project to the various communities for active participation in local governance.

The Local Governance Consultant to YOWE, Mr Daniel Alimo said the assembly should make its activities participatory and all inclusive with all categories of people involved.

He said more importantly, the assembly should be accountable to the citizens in the municipality to win their trust .

In attendance were the various identifiable women groups, including queenmothers, market women, persons with disabilities, and people from  the remote communities in Lower Manya Krobo.