Project to make Offinso municipality self-reliant lauded
The former Offinso Urban Council Chairman, Mr John Kwadwo Owusu-Boakye, has observed that the Offinso Municipal Public Private Partnership Agenda (OMPPPA) is a good step that can make the people in the municipality become self-reliant.
The OMPPPA is a development-oriented poverty reduction strategy initiated by the Offinso Municipal Assembly (OMA) to empower the people to create their own jobs and other opportunities.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic, Mr Owusu-Boakye, who was a member of the Board of OMPPPA, noted that it was an innovative concept which did not expect the central government to create jobs and wealth for the people of Offinso.
Rather, he said it was an initiative which sought to mobilise all available resources at the community and manage them judiciously.
That, he emphasised, would give practical expression to the principles and ideals of social democracy at the grassroots level and furthermore lay the foundation for people-centred development.
M Owusu-Boakye, who was also the Special Assistant to Dr Anthony Akoto-Osei, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tafo-Pankrono Electoral Area, however noted that the assembly would play a facilitating role by creating an enabling environment for the private sector to grow, thrive and succeed.
He also said OMPPPA would also ensure that banks and other financial institutions felt safe to finance the OMPPPA project while beneficiaries like farmers would also be sensitised to be good borrowers and adopt the project mind set and practicalise the ideas and principles.
He described OMPPPA as a pro-poor investment initiative designed to make millionaires out of paupers; stressing that it directly benefitted the really poor at the grassroots level, unlike some conventional poverty reduction strategies that tended to perpetuate the status quo.
He noted that OMPPPA was non-political and emphasised more of the development agenda of the people in the municipality.
According to Mr Owusu- Boakye, it will be suicidal to play partisan politics with development programmes going on in one's community.
He stressed that it was time people emphasised more of their area's development rather that their partisan interest which he stressed was parochial.
He therefore called on the people (both home and abroad) to embrace the idea and come out with whatever inputs they had for the project to enhance sustainable development of their municipality.
