The Korle-Klottey Municipal Assembly (KoKMA) has held its maiden meet-the- press to highlight on some programmes, activities as well as projects in the municipality covering the period of 10 months.
Addressing the media, Adjei Tawiah, the Municipal Chief Executive said though the assembly was located in a very strategic location in the national capital, it also opens the area up to a lot of social vices.
“We have an advantage of being endowed with shopping and trading centres, we equally have challenges in dealing with attitudes in the areas of sanitation, congestion from hawkers and unauthorised development, among many others,” he said.
Mr Tawiah said, as a young assembly, steps had been taken to equip the municipality with requisite human resources to confront challenges and chart a good course for the development of the area.
He said the assembly had adopted stringent measures to ensure that general security to maintain peace and protection of life and property were implemented, and encouraged residents to report any suspicious characters in the neighbourhoods to the police.
Mr Tawiah said apart from introducing a sustained maintenance culture of providing streetlights in the municipality at all times, “we are also in the process of recruiting city guards for the direction of traffic and other related activities within the municipality to augment the work of the police.”
He said flooding, which is a major occurrence around the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange and the Odawna areas, was being addressed with the construction of 600 and 300 metres storm drains to ensure free flow of water, in addition to ensuring routine desilting of critical drains to mitigate the flood.
Mr Tawiah said as part of efforts to provide enabling environment and infrastructure to promote local economic development, the assembly would partner private investors to redevelop the markets and some transport terminals.
He mentioned some of the projects as the Tema Station and Odawna markets, the Pedestrian Shopping Mall, the Adabraka and Osu markets, to address the issue of inadequate market space for trading and enhance mobility within the Central Business District.
On sanitation, he said, currently KoKMA was using private organisations and sanitation guards to handle the issue within the municipality, adding that the area would be zoned and outsourced to more contractors to ensure efficiency.
He said the Assembly was constructing a 20-seater water closet toilet facility at Kimbu High School, Fish Market at Osu, a 3-storey administration block with ICT and library facility at Kinbu High School, among others, in the municipality.
BY LAWRENCE MARKWEI
