TIME TO GET DOWN TO BUSINESS (PAGE 18)

District, municipal and metropolitan assemblies have been urged to move away from workshops,conferences and rolled their shirtsleeves and get down to real business to address the needs of the people.
The Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, who said this after his tour of the twin-city of Sekondi/Takoradi, said the problems on the ground were practical and it was about time lasting solutions were found for them.
“Enough of conferences, workshops and review conferences when the problem is still the same, the time for the practical work is now,” he said.
He said at the moment, there was pressure on the facilities in the metropolis due to the country’s oil find and the expected economic activities onshore.
This he said required swift and pragmatic measures to contain the demands on its social infrastructure.
The deputy minister commended the assembly for the measures it had taken to avert flooding in the twin-city this season, and that there was still a lot of work to be done if the metropolis had to contain the demands on space.
Mr Ankrah gave the assurance that the ministry would collaborate with the assembly and ensure that the right things were done to create an environment that would support the socio-economic development of the people.
He urged members of the general public especially traders, to collaborate with the assembly to create the needed environment for development.
“Change is a very difficult thing, but it pays in the long run, if we continue to rush through relevant issue, it only means that we are delaying the bigger issues, which will come back to hit us unexpectedly, ”he said
The deputy minister urged the assembly to ensure that they adopted the proper approaches to the decongestion exercise to ensure that people understood the problems at stake.
“As you are getting ready to build huge multi-purpose structure for trading activities, there will be relocation and displacement of traders to pave way for the new infrastructure, but it is just right that we do a lot of public education to psyche them up for that change,” he said.
For his part, the Sekondi/Takoradi Metropolitan Chief Executive, Mr Kobina Prah Annan, gave the assurance that the assembly would do everything possible to ensure that the demands of the people were met.
He said the assembly would continue with ongoing projects which were initiated by his predecessor while initiating new ones.
Mr Annan said to change and conform to present prevailing demands of the metropolis might be difficult but the public had to realise that it was not the focus of the assembly to chase people or displace traders.
Rather, he said, every move of the assembly was to create the needed environment for stronger economic take-off of the local economy, especially in the wake of the expected oil boom.