Assembly members must forge harmony with MDCEs
The President of the Volta Regional House of Chiefs, Togbe Afede XIV, has appealed to assembly members of the various district assemblies in the region to forge harmony with their respective districts and municipal chief executives to ensure the steady development of their areas.
He also stressed that they should collaborate with chiefs as partners in development to chart a common course for development.
Togbe Afede, who is the Agbogbomefia of the Asogli state, noted that the current unrest between some assembly members and municipal and district chief executives in some municipalities and districts was not in the best interest of the region, and said assembly members should commit and rededicate themselves to their district and the region.
The Agbogbomefia was addressing the second ordinary meeting of the year for the house in Ho.
Frustrations from closure of Adomi bridge
He expressed some reservations about inadequate preparations made prior to the caused of the Adomi bridge at Atimpoku and said it had caused a lot of inconveniences for commuters and the matter had become a topic of concern for chiefs, queens and people of the Volta Region.
According to the Agbogbomefia, an in-depth study of vehicular movement across the bridge should have been conducted to ascertain ferry capacity and the length of time for crossing , including the type of vehicles involved. This would have avoided the present predicament of long queues before crossing in the ferry.
He also said the completion of the Sogakope-Ho road would have offered a fast alternative route but that had not been possible, adding that the passage through Akuse over the Kpong Dam (for smaller vehicles) would have been ideal but the failure to tar the link between the dam and Senchi posed a hindrance to smooth movement.
Togbe Afede, therefore, advocated that the link between the dam and Senchi should be tarred and tolls should be collected to cover the cost of tarring since inconveniences continued as regard travelling between the Volta and Eastern regions.
Entrepreneurial fund
He announced that $26 million had been voted for a Rural Enterprise Programme (REP) and charged district assemblies to take advantage of it to promote entrepreneurship in the districts, adding that there was another four-million euro grant from the Netherlands government to encourage vegetable cultivation, and urged chiefs to access the fund to reduce unemployment in their areas.
Government’s plans for Volta
Addressing the chiefs, the Volta Regional Minister, Ms Helen Adjoa Ntoso, said the way forward for the region could not be accomplished without the involvement of chiefs as partners in development.
She promised to lobby the government for the execution of projects such as the Eastern corridor road, the proposed airstrip and University for Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS), and the regional sports complex, adding that a list of uncompleted projects had been compiled for completion with funds to be secured from an agency in the United Kingdom.
Ms Ntoso disclosed that GH¢8 million had also been allocated for the construction of a laboratory for UHAS, adding that six out of 11 projects earmarked for UHAS were almost completed.