You are here: HomeNewsRegional2004 12 31Article 72588

Regional News of Friday, 31 December 2004

Source: GNA

Mfantsiman undertakes more development projects

Saltpond, Dec 31, GNA - The Mfantseman District Assembly has undertaken 32 projects from more than 8 billion cedis allocated to the district in 2004.

The projects were on education, health, markets, water and sanitation and were executed from the assembly's share of the District Assembly's Common Fund that amounted to 4,854,000,000 billion cedis, 1.5 billion cedis from the HIPC fund and 650 million cedis from the European Union Micro Projects Programme.

The assembly supported the projects with a counterpart funding of 162.5 million cedis.

The Social Investment Fund (SIF) provided 876 million cedis with the assembly topping it up with 292 million cedis.

The Robert Quainoo-Arthur, the District Chief Executive, said this at the assembly's last session of the year at Saltpond. Mr Quainoo-Arthur said seven projects were undertaken under the assembly's share of the Common Fund, 10 under HIPC, 10 under EU Micro Projects Programme and five under SIF.

He commended the beneficiary communities for their support in executing the projects.

Mr Quainoo-Arthur said the assembly, as at November 30, 2004 had collected 898,282,491.40 cedis as against 823,226,000 cedis approved budget estimate for the year.

He attributed the achievement to a windfall of rent advances of 367 million cedis paid on land and market stores at Saltpond. The assembly spent 669.998,464.81 cedis as against the approved budgetary expenditure of 823,226,000 cedis and commended the administration for prudent management of resources.

Mr Quainoo-Arthur mentioned poor sanitation as the major problem facing the district and appealed to members of the assembly to help improve environmental sanitation in their communities.

The assembly however got divided when it came to discussing disbursement of the Common Fund for 2005 with particular reference to the Poverty Alleviation Fund.

A faction led by the DCE was of the view that since recovery of what has been given out has not been encouraging, the assembly should reduce it to 4.2 per cent of the Common Fund to make room for more development projects to be taken.

He said out of 1,691,005.10 cedis given out to individuals and groups from 1998 to date only 137,845,233 cedis had been recovered. But another group led by the Presiding Member, Mr Anthony Adjei Kusi, felt the people's standard of living could be enhanced if they got more money to promote their businesses. The group suggested that the fund should be increased to 15 per cent of the assembly's share of the Common Fund. 31 Dec 04