Central gov’t not responsible for feeder, urban roads  – Lawyer

A real estate lawyer, Nana Odeneho Kyeremanteng has urged Ghanaians who are displeased over the poor state of their roads and other developmental projects to direct their anger to the various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) and not the central government.

According to him, per the  local government law, Act 936 such projects are to be undertaken by the MMDAs on behalf of the central government.

Mr. Kyeremanteng made the comment on the Citi Breakfast Show on Monday when the poor state of roads in the country was being discussed.

Some Ghanaians who called into the show expressed frustration at duty bearers over the deplorable nature of their roads.

But Mr. Kyeremanteng insisted that central government by law is only responsible for constructing highways but not feeder or urban roads.

“When we are talking about government, I think we should distinguish between the central government and that of the local government. We say that all governments are governments but when it comes to development, the local government is the developing agency of the central government. And the principal law guiding their operation is the new law that is Act 936. We were using the Act 462 from 1993 up to last year September until the new law was passed.”

He explained that the new law enforces the decentralization process and clearly demarcate remits of the central and local governments in terms of construction of projects.

“So what we are saying is that so far as the district assemblies are concerned, they have a department of feeder roads as part of the decentralization process and for the urban and municipal authorities we have the urban roads being part of the decentralization process. So what we are expecting is that any development that is supposed to be roads, streets, the construction of drains among others are not supposed to be the central governments work.”

He said the law further charges the MMDAs to set up a separate account where levies collected in the form of building permits are invested into adding that such monies are supposed to be used for fixing roads, and putting up other developmental projects within the districts and municipalities.

“Under the development permit, you are supposed to pay money for the construction of the roads, provision of water and electricity to your house. When the assemblies collect the monies they are supposed to put them in escrow accounts that will be used for the provision of the various facilities and infrastructure in the area.”

“In this country all these laws have been set but successive governments refuse to apply it. So when people wake up they insult the central government but it is not the central government duty to provide in the municipal or urban areas the facilities that goes into the various residential estates. The central government's role is to provide highways, to provide money for the construction of the highways and even in that case they even collect tolls in other to recoup the kind of expenditure they spent on the project,” Mr. Kyeremanteng added.

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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin