More Financial Assistance For Local Assemblies That Deliver

Mr. Yaw Osafo Marfo, Senior Minister, says government will give financial assistance to local government assemblies that increase their revenue mobilization to boost their development.

'Government will provide extra funds for any assembly that could improve on its internally generated funds; whatever funds you generate, we will add to it to develop your area,' he said.

Mr Marfo was inaugurating the Tema West Municipal Assembly which was carved out of the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) on behalf of President Akufo-Addo.

Admonishing the new assembly to work hard to generate more revenue, he said 'Tema as an industrial city has the biggest potential for employment, and for industrialization, Tema West within the Tema Metropolis even has a bigger potential because it is really new and has a lot of undeveloped area and vast land reserves.'

He prayed the new assembly to make sanitation their first priority, admonishing them "to become the best managed in sanitation in Ghana.

He cautioned against infighting by saying that, "The assembly can do nothing if there is no harmony and unity in itself. Let us all think through and know that nothing can happen without unity.

He advised that the common cause for the Assembly was that "we run a municipality that will create employment and raise revenue and improve the quality of life of the people we serve.'

The Tema Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), Mr. Felix Mensah Nii Annan-La, in a welcome address, observed that the inauguration of the new assemblies has brought to fruition the intention of the government to encourage grass root participation in decision making that would impact positively on the development of the Tema West Municipal area."

He said this marked another achievement in Ghana's efforts to deepen decentralization and local governance as a way of giving meaning to the devolution of power to the local assemblies.

The new municipality which was the fourth to the calved out of the TMA, would have a batch of 11 elected Assembly members and five government appointees to start working with the technocrats that would be posted there.

Tema West Municipality was one of the 38 new districts and municipalities created by the government of Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo as part of his efforts to deepen grass root participation and decentralization in Ghana.