Lack of resources pose challenge to new districts-Minister

Mr. Akwasi Opong-Fosu, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, has bemoaned funding challenges as some of the constraints affecting the newly-created districts resulting in renting private apartments for official accommodation.

He said renting of private properties comes at a cost to the country, and gave the assurance that construction work would begin in all the newly-created districts.

Opong-Fosu said made the remarks in Tamale during a meeting with various heads of departments and DCEs as part of his three-day tour of the Northern Region.

He said in 2012, the Ministry released GH₵100,000 to each of the 46-newly created districts for the purchase of equipment adding that the Ministry is finalising arrangements for the award of contracts to construct new office accommodation for the Districts Assemblies.

Mr. Opong-Fosu said, the Ministry, as part of fulfilling its developmental goals, allocated various sums of money to some MMDAs, and mentioned the District Development Facility (DDF) and the Urban Development Grant (UDG), as one of the projects where GH36,806,651 had been released to all the ten regions with the Northern Region receiving GH54, 404,783.20.

He said government was implementing a five-year project dubbed, the Ghana Social Opportunities Project, at the cost of US$89.1 million, funded by the World Bank, where it intends to target spending on social and economic projects to improve the standards of 49 MMDAs.

Credit: GNA