No communal support leads to black listing

The District Chief Executive for the Asuogyaman district, Mr. Emmanuel W. Ntow-Bediako, has once again admonished people in the community to be more committed to their communities.

He said the apathy people towards communal labour to implement projects of which they are beneficiaries is not acceptable.

“It is disheartening to note that some of our communities have virtually refused to support the assembly with communal labour to implement projects of which they are the beneficiaries” he stressed”.

He contends one of the best tools that can be used to develop rural communities is communal labour.

Mr. Ntow-Bediako made these observations when the assembly met to approve its fee-fixing, annual estimates and supplementary budget for the year 2007.

Pondering over what the assemblies needed to do to accelerate the pace of development; he was convinced active participation of the beneficiary communities in the implementation of projects could go a long way to help the development agenda of the district.

He condemned the attitude of the communities towards the implementation of community counterpart funding projects; notable among them are the Social Investment Fund (SIF) Projects, DANIDA/Community Water and Sanitation Agency Projects and the European Union Micro Projects.

“Let us ask ourselves whether our communities exhibit any sign of joy over these projects by paying their share of the cost of the projects either in cash or in kind as contained in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed”. He said.

Mr. Emmanuel Ntow-Bediako admitted that some communities find it difficult to pay their contributions towards such projects due to some socio-economic factors, he insists there are many economically vibrant communities capable of paying their contributions, and yet refused to do so.

With regard to the DANIDA/Community Water Sanitation Agency Projects, he said even though in some cases the district assembly was able to fulfill its part its part of the agreement by paying promptly its counterpart funds towards such projects, support needed from the communities is lacked.

The sad news according to him is that, the affected communities are likely to be blacklisted and would therefore not enjoy any future projects from donors with the same arrangements.

He therefore charged the communities to develop a communal attitude and debunk the notion that the government and the district assemblies are obliged to bear the full cost of every project which he describes as “detrimental to the rapid development of the district”.