News:
March 21, 2018
Former Local Government and Rural Development Minister and Member of Parliament for Wa West, Joseph Yieleh Chireh, has taken a swipe at the ruling New Patriotic Party government for only being good at creating bureaucratic jobs.
According to the Wa West lawmaker apart from appointment of so many Ministers, they also appointed so many people to serve them, “that is not development” he remarked in an interview.
He noted that with technology in place now, decentralization is not an issue now, getting things done at a distant place was what we all complained about in the past and added that the creation of the recent Municipal and District Assemblies will not bring development.
The purpose of decentralization is to bring governance to the door step of the people, but if you look at the recent creation most of them are in the urban areas part of the Municipal and District Assemblies they covered out. If you listen to the inauguration of Ablekuma West Municipal, the problem about accommodation springs up, he lamented.
Most of the Assemblies created in 2004 and 2007 still have issues with accommodation and this whole idea of everybody wanting to have his or her town to be the capital and Municipal is that part of development?, he queried.
Development can be pushed better, but not to duplicate bureaucracies by appointing more DCEs and providing for more coordinating directors, rather we are going to split more resources, we need to go gradually, he remarked.
He further noted that, if there is outlandish community with vast land close to Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) you can gradually put the structures of the Sub Metro Office there and eventually they will operate as a Municipal Assembly.
Again, to create them and now say let us use the resources together, it can be used to build offices, build bungalow unless you are telling me that building office and bungalow is part of development, I do not think so.
People want to improve their life situations, improvement in their school and health quality and basic things, but if it is just in my village we also have bungalow for the DCE if that is development I don’t think so if that is decentralization, I do not believe that, he said.
By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com