The West Gonja municipal assembly will on Monday, 20th June, 2022, embark on a campaign to demolish all unauthorized structures on pavements and developments along waterways across the municipality to help avoid perennial flooding in the area.
The exercise is to also pave for the capital city to obtain the necessary mark for the secondary cities program.
In May 2022, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo directed Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to ensure that developments along waterways and obstructions to the free flow of water are removed.
The President tasked the MMDAs to ensure developers adhere strictly to the planning laws of the country and sanction any staff who issue permits for structures to be built on waterways.
A monitoring team, the President indicated, has been established to report to him on the progress of the directives, adding Chief Executives of the MMDAs would be held responsible for any breach of the planning laws of the country.
In view of this the West Gonja municipal assembly, at a stakeholder meeting held on Friday, 17th June, 2022, has agreed to embark on a campaign and subsequent removal of all structures on the pavements and waterways.
The Hon. Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Musah Kusubari Karim at the meeting, said the idea came at the right time and called on the chiefs and people of the area to help the assembly carry out the exercise because anytime it rains, flooding is recorded.
Musah Kusubari also called on all citizens of the area to put heads together to stop this annual canker.
The meeting was attended by heads of departments, security agencies, the traditional council, hon. assembly members, GPRTU, the clergy, among others.
Musah Kusubari admonished the traditional leaders, clergy, security agencies and politicians to stand firm to help the assembly fight the wrong in society.
"Once we start the demolishing exercise, people will run to the chiefs, Imams, politicians, pastors, and others to intercede for them, however, I want to plead with you to remain firm to this course so that the municipality can also benefit from the numerous available packages to speed up the growth and development of the assembly". he said
The municipal Engineer Inusah Dramani explained that the objective of Ghana Secondary Cities Project is to improve urban management and basic urban services in participating municipalities in Ghana.
The West Gonja municipal assembly will only benefit from the project if it obtained a good mark.
As such from Monday, 20th June, 2022, the team will meet owners of all affected structures to remind them to vacate before the action to pull down those structures begin.
The secondary city project package is currently being run by only the East Gonja municipality within the Savannah region.
He said the secondary cities program constitutes a slice of the government’s broader decentralization support program (the responsiveness factor grant (RFG) and its associated district performance assessment tool (DPAT)), specifically focusing on MAs that manage urban development in secondary cities.
The program will have three windows: (i) local window, (ii) regional window, and (iii) national window. Access to the program’s Urban Development Grants (UDGs) will be conditional upon MAs complying with RFG and DPAT minimum conditions and obtaining a performance measure score that is equal to or above the national average.
The program boundary of the eligible MAs under the program has been determined based on a two-stage approach. The first stage is to agree on a set of criteria which must be met by an MA before it becomes eligible to benefit from the program, and second to screen all the MAs using the same criteria and identify those that meet all the said criteria, he quoted.
The West Gonja municipal assembly has since served letters to all affected structures, meetings with affected owners will begin next Monday before action soon commences.
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