Dr Letsa charges MMDAs to be proactive

The Volta Regional Minister, Dr Archibald Letsa, has tasked all 25 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in the region to be proactive in addressing the challenges confronting the various assemblies.

The assemblies, according to the minister, must be the first point of contact in dealing with the challenges under their jurisdictions, instead of waiting for action from the central government.

Dr Letsa, at a press briefing on his recent working visit of all MMDAs in the region, noted that challenges such as inadequate furniture and lack of logistics as a result of the Free Senior High School (SHS) Policy implementation could have been addressed in the interim by the assemblies using their local resources.

Assemblies are in charge

Dr Letsa told the media in Ho last Friday that, “The assemblies must realise that they are in charge of everything that happens in their various areas, whether it’s education, health, sanitation among others.

“So if there are challenges in the local level, the assemblies must be proactive and find out what needs to be done using some of their resources from central government, as well as internally generated funds,” he stated.

He said it would be wrong for the MMDAs to think that every problem must be solved from Accra.

The minister indicated that his trip to the districts brought to the fore, teething challenges in the educational, health, road and other sectors, which the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) was liaising with the respective sector agencies and ministries to tackle in order to bring relief to the affected communities.

He, nonetheless, urged the local assemblies to take charge and work with decentralised departments and agencies to help mitigate some of those challenges while awaiting permanent intervention from the central government.

Districts League Table

Dr Letsa described as demoralising, the poor performance of Volta MMDAs on the Districts League Table (DLT), which saw two districts in the region being ranked last nationwide for two consecutive years.

The North Tongu District took the bottom spot on the 2016 DLT among all 216 MMDAs in the country, and was replaced by the Krachi East District on the 2017 ranking released last week by the United Nations Children’s Education Fund (UNICEF) and CDD-Ghana.

The situation, the minister noted, was adversely affecting efforts of stakeholders, including the VRCC, which was taking frantic steps to reverse the trend.

He, however, indicated that the VRCC had put in place some interventions which would improve the performance of the assemblies on the 2018 DLT and urged all stakeholders, including assembly members, to ensure the judicious use of resources.