‘Don’t stampede govt to undertake unplanned projects’
The Central Regional Minister, Mr Kwamena Duncan, has urged the citizenry not to "blackmail" government into undertaking unplanned projects in their communities.
He said the worrying phenomenon where groups and communities embarked on demonstrations to demand certain development projects at all cost often threw the government's development plans and programmes out of gear.
Mr Duncan gave the admonition at the Town/Meet-the-Press for the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo Abrem Municipality at Elmina last Tuesday.
The meeting was to present to the citizenry and the press programmes and projects being undertaken in the municipality and to allow them to question what the government had been doing in the municipality.
It was also to allow for constructive suggestions to help better the municipality's growth and development.
Mr Duncan indicated that while it was important for the citizenry to remind the government of its promises of development projects and bring them to the fore, incessant demands for projects with threats often distorted the government’s development plans.
Eventually, he said, "this comes back to us in more biting ways as unplanned projects undertaken to satisfy aggrieved communities distort budgets."
Scholarship
Touching on the decentralisation of scholarships, Mr Duncan said the government had worked to ensure that many needy Ghanaian students everywhere benefitted from the scholarship scheme and that it would continue to work to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor through social interventions.
He added that it was essential that communities patronised products manufactured locally to help sustain local industries that provide jobs for the communities.
MCE
The Municipal Chief Executive for KEEA, Nana Appiah Korang, said many infrastructure projects had been undertaken in schools to ensure that pupils and teachers in the municipality were provided with conducive environment for teaching and learning.
He said 74 tertiary students in the municipality had benefitted from government scholarships, with a total of GH¢82,376 disbursed to beneficiaries.
On agriculture, Nana Korang said 30,000 coconut seedlings had been distributed to farmers free of charge under the government's ‘Planting For Exports and Rural Development’ programme while 186 persons living with disability had been supported to venture into animal husbandry to improve livelihoods.
He said the government would continue to improve the lives of the people steadily through the provision of infrastructure and workable social interventions and called for support to achieve those goals.