'I'm focused on providing development to my people'- New Abirem DCE

Raymond Nana Damptey, District Chief Executive for Birim North has stated that he was focused on providing development projects to his people and will therefore not be distracted by falsehood and unsubstantiated allegations.

He said by dint of his hard work the district was adjudged the second best in the whole country in terms of Internally Generated Funds (IGF) by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development in 2019.

“In the area of security, under my watch, we constructed a police station each at Akim Ntronang and Nkwarteng and a police post at Noyem.

Mr Damptey, who was speaking to the Ghana News Agency on some of his achievements in the district said “Town roads in communities like New and Old Abirem, Afosu, Adausena, Ntronang and Mamanso have been tarred with a number of feeder roads also rehabilitated to ensure easy accessibility”.

Nana Damptey added that the assembly also constructed a new administrative block for the New Abirem Government Hospital and constructed a wall around the whole hospital and put a wire mesh on it to ensure security.

He said 64 boreholes were drilled to provide clean water across the length and breadth of the district in addition to the construction of a lot of classroom blocks and rehabilitation of CHPS compounds.

He said he had over the years enjoyed the partnership of chiefs and other opinion leaders, a situation that enabled him to provide the development projects and called for unity among all stakeholders to achieve more.

On his alleged misunderstanding with the chief of the area, Nana Damptey expressed sadness to a news item on some sections of the media describing him as disrespectful to traditional authorities in the area.

The DCE said as part of efforts to generate income internally, the assembly met stakeholders regularly to go through a” Fee Fixing” exercise during which time existing taxes were reviewed and new ones fixed.

“Thereafter the reviewed taxes are submitted to the General Assembly for debate and gazetted to become a legal document.

Two weeks before August 7, this year, Nana Damptey said letters were sent out by the assembly to the relevant stakeholders, which included representatives of banks, market queens, mining companies, shop owners, fuel pumping stations, drivers' unions and others.

He said about 2000 hours on August 7, he received a call from the MP for Abirem, Mr. John Osei-Frimpong saying the Abiremhene, Obrempong Kwasi Amo Kyeretwie the first wanted him to cancel the meeting, which was scheduled for the following day August 7 because it was a market day at New Abirem.

The DCE said he explained to the MP that it would not be possible to cancel the meeting, first because it would be unfair to a representative from a bank like ECOBANK which had its only branch in the whole of Eastern Region at New Abirem sending someone from Accra to represent it and others only to learn that the meeting had been cancelled at the last hour.

Secondly, he explained that the meeting was purely administrative and for the four years that he was in office, no traditional authority was involved in its planning to the extent that chiefs were not invited except maybe a particular chief was running a business and paying taxes to the assembly.

He said it was therefore unfair to describe him as disrespectful to chiefs, when indeed he had over the years worked in collaboration with them.

GNA