Accra, May 14, GNA - Mr. Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, the Deputy Minster of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment on Thursday toured departments under his ministry and assured them of the ministry's commitment to their needs.

The tour was to familiarize him with the departments, access their working conditions, the challenges they face and their way forward. The Deputy Minister first visited the Urban Management Land Information System's (UMLIS) Project office where a conference was held and presentations were made to know what the project was about. Mr. Afriyie-Ankrah showed interest in the project, saying, the project was endowed with a lot of potential which could be important for planning purposes.

Mr. Kofi Yeboah, the Project Manager said the aggregates of district development performance reflect in the total national economic development but large potential of the revenue at this level remains untapped.

"One challenge to Local Authorities was lack of coordinated and consistent information on land for planning, decision-making, revenue mobilization and urban management which led to needless duplication of efforts, frustration and public dissatisfaction", he said. The project, he said was to develop an electronic land information database and a tool for efficient revenue mobilization and increase in economic development thereby improving the living standards of the citizenry.

The land information system would help District Assemblies in the country to efficiently collect land rents, that is, property rates and business Operating Permits; and other municipal fees for effective urban management.

Mr. Yeboah said the Accra Metropolitan Assembly has made the UMLIS project its strategy for efficient revenue mobilization for the coming years. The project was piloting in the three Ayawaso sub metros, and after it has been completed and documented, the remaining nine sub metros in Accra would be covered, he said. It would increase the Assembly's capital formation for more developmental projects such as slum upgrading and infrastructural engineering.

The Deputy Minister visited the Births and Deaths Registry where he toured their offices and expressed concern about their working condition and said the registry had a critical role to play in the socio-economic development of the country and therefore there is the need to pay attention to it.

Mr. Stephen Amoah, the Registrar of Births and Deaths said they were working in dilapidated structures in which documents could be destroyed if there was a heavy down pour, adding that they have important archives dating back as 1912.

It was observed that all their buildings were supported with stones on the roof to prevent the wind from blowing it off, their louvers were corroded, ceilings damaged and their walls cracked. Mr. Amoah therefore appealed to the government to come to their aid by rehabilitating their structures adding that they needed a permanent office to have a well-structured database. Mr. Afryie-Ankrah was at the Aburi Botanical Gardens where he toured the garden to observe their conditions and said it was the best place for relaxation so Ghanaians should patronise it. Mr. Owusu Afriyie, the Director of the garden said they needed capital to upgrade the standards of their guest houses, renovate the abandoned conference facility which was built since 1996 to stage national and international conferences. "Government needed to improve facilities to promote tourism", Mr. Afriyie-Ankrah said.

He said they needed to involve public-private partnership to improve the condition of the garden since government alone cannot provide the needed funds to develop the garden. The Deputy Minister said the garden was endowed with extreme potentials and expressed government's commitment to come to their aid. He visited the Community Based Rural Development Project's office where he met with the National Coordinator, Mr. Brown Matthew Oppong and said action plan projects were of vital use to the Ministry. Mr Oppong said their project aims at making the people in the communities know that they have the right to take part in decision-making for them to feel appreciated in any developmental project. He said the project focused on decentralization in the area councils and said a lot attention should be paid to capacity-building.

14 May 09