DON'T PLAY POLITICS WITH DISTRICT CAPITALS (Page 23)

Story: Kwame Asare Boadu, Kumasi

THE Minister of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment, Mr Kwadwo Adjei-Darko, has called on Ghanaians not to play politics with the siting of capitals for the newly-created districts.
He stated that the government had shown enough openness in the creation of districts and siting of their capitals, and it would be untenable to play politics with it.
According to Mr Adjei-Darko, the government had nothing to hide in the siting of the district capitals. He therefore urged people in the new districts to offer the needed support to entrench decentralisation and accelerate development of the communities.
Addressing a well-attended durbar at Kodie, which has been selected as the capital of the yet-to-be inaugurated Afigya Kwabre District in the Ashanti Region, Mr Adjei-Darko said a responsible government like the Kufuor administration would always come out with policies and programmes that would raise living standards of the people.
The durbar, attended by all the chiefs in the communities of the district, afforded the minister the opportunity to explain reasons behind the creation of the district to the people. He encouraged them to unite to develop the district when it was inaugurated.
Afigya Kwabre District, which was carved out of the Kwabre and Afigya Sekyere districts, would be inaugurated alongside other new ones on February 29, 2008.
Mr Adjei-Darko called for unity in the new district so that together, they could pursue a common agenda towards its development.
He urged Ghanaians to ignore people whose only aim was to create problems in order to achieve their negative political ambitions.
The minister mentioned that the District Assemblies’ Common Fund had been increased from five to seven per cent, to accelerate the development in the districts.
Mr Adjei-Darko also stated that each district would benefit from some special projects this year.
The projects included the tarring of 15 kilometres of roads in each district as well as the sinking of 15 boreholes and also the provision of electricity to a community in each district.
Mr Adjei-Darko appealed to the people to honour their tax obligations to enable the government to generate enough revenue for development.
On the December 2008 general election, Mr Adjei-Darko advised all activists and members of the various political parties to conduct their campaigns peacefully, devoid of insults.
He condemned people who were beating war drums with regard to the elections.
The Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr E.A. Owusu-Ansah, gave the assurance that he and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Afigya Sekyere West, Mr Albert Kan-Dapaah, whose constituencies were in the new district, would team up for the progress of the district.
He appealed to the chiefs to readily release land for government projects in the district capital.