Ashanti Regional Minister condemns officials

Kumasi, Oct. 23, GNA- Mr Sampson Kwaku Boafo, Ashanti Regional Minister, has criticised the misuse of project facilities by some officials at the detriment of the people they are to serve.

He said it was the duty of project officials and the entire citizenry to make sure, that the country's limited resources were judiciously used to fight poverty in the society.

This was contained in an address read for him at the opening of the annual review meeting of Community-Based Poverty Reduction Project (CPRP) in Kumasi on Thursday.

The two-day meeting was to enable the stakeholders to assess the strategies for the implementation of the various components of the CPRP project, which is being run on pilot basis in six districts. The districts are Kumasi, Accra, Shama Ahanta, Komenda-Edina-Eguafo, Bongo and the Sefwi-Wiawso.

Mr Boafo stated that Ghanaians were capable of working hard and effecting changes in their lives, and appealed to all stakeholders on the project to be sincere and avoid partisanship.

He expressed regret that many poverty alleviation schemes instituted by the various district assemblies had failed due to poor implementation and lack of review mechanisms to identify and correct the problems.

Mr Boafo indicated that the review meeting was critical to identify shortfalls so as to put the project on course.

Professor George Gyan-Baffour, Director General of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), called for closer collaboration between all stakeholders in the implementation of all poverty reduction interventions in order to achieve the desired results.

He said the NDPC would analyse all the best poverty reduction practices, document them and advise the district assemblies to adopt them for implementation.