KNUST/LOCAL GOV'T. SERVICE COLLABORATE ON RURAL ECONOMY

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The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, KNUST, in partnership with the Local Government Service, has launched a project aimed at identifying the business potential of each of the 216 districts in the country. 

The ultimate objective of the project is help the local communities to turn around these business prospects into viable economic and commercial activities to improve the livelihood of the inhabitants. 

The first phase of the project, which will last one year starting immediately, will cost one million Ghana Cedis and is being borne by the Local Government Service.

 It is christened “District Assemblies Enabled Programme for Accelerated Economic and Social Development at the District Level”. 

At the project launch in Kumasi, the Head of the Local Government Service, Dr. Callistus Mahama disclosed that a Bill is currently before Parliament for consideration and passage to give more functions to the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies as well as deepen decentralization of governance. 

The Bill, when passed into law, will take the place of six existing laws regulating operations of the local service. 

He disclosed also that very soon, all staff of the Town and Country Planning will be brought under the local government service as part of decentralization.  

 Dr. Mahama announced that by two years’ time, about 60 per cent of national resources will be sent to the local government as part of the decentralization process.  

He disclosed also that from next year, all aids from development partners plus funds from the central government will be put into a centralized pool and disbursed among the MMDAs to finance various operations under a Sector-wide approach to decentralization while a special fund will also be set up to build the capacity of local government staff. 

Dr. Mahama lauded the Local Government Service-KNUST partnership saying that MMDAs need to go beyond the normal functions of managing environmental sanitation, security and safety. 

The Vice Chancellor of the KNUST, Professor Kwasi Obiri-Danso, disclosed that all the MMDAs have been grouped into three Zones for the project will first assess the unique economic and business prospect of each of them to harness their commercial opportunities for the good of the local people.
 

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