Town and Country Planning Dept to become Authority
The Department of Town and Country Planning is to be turned into an authority to empower it to control the planning and development of infrastructure across the country.
Advertisement
The transformation is one of the several provisions contained in the National Spatial Planning Framework Draft Bill.
At a symposium at the ongoing 66th Annual New Year School at the Business School of the University of Ghana, Legon, yesterday, the acting Director of the department, Mr Kofi Osei, said the draft bill was currently before the Attorney-General (A-G).
He said the A-G was expected to submit the bill to cabinet for approval by the end of January 2015, while Parliament was also anticipated to pass the bill into law by the end of the first quarter of this year.
The topic for the symposium, which was attended by metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives (MMDCEs) and development planners, was “Social Accountability and Citizen Participation”.
Mr Osei said, under the current law, the MMDCEs had the final say in the sanctioning of development projects in their respective areas.
That situation, he said, had resulted in haphazard springing up of infrastructure across the country.
Mr Osei also said the expected transformation of the department into an authority would enable it to correct any decision taken by the MMDCEs with respect to planning and development of infrastructure.
Other Trending Stories
Other provisions
Mr Osei said the bill had made provision for the creation of a public data room that would be open to the public to access all the development plans in their respective localities.
Besides, he added, membership of the statutory committees of the various assemblies would be expanded to ensure the speedy processing of building documents.
Another provision, he said, was the opportunity for developers to appeal against the rejection of their application for building permits.
Sanitation
In his presentation, the Provost of the African Institute of Sanitation and Waste Management of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Prof. Ernest Yanful, proposed that funding for waste collection be tied to property rates.
He said that was the only way that the government could raise the needed revenue to deal with the increased waste generation in the country.
Prof. Yanful mentioned the irregular supply of electricity as well as the high cost of power as the main hindrances to the recycling of waste in the country.
He, therefore, urged the government “to lower the prices of energy to encourage the citizenry to go into recycling”.