The Wa East District Assembly on Friday outlined activities the assembly has undertaken over the past two years to improve the lives of the people at its Town Hall Meeting.
The forum also gave the people and other stakeholders in the district the opportunity to learn about the developmental projects and programmes being implemented by the assembly as well as to share their grievances with the assembly for redress.
The Wa East District Chief Executive (DCE), Mr Moses Jotie, explained that the assembly was committed to principles of transparency, probity and accountability to gain the confidence of the people and to enable them to assess and appreciate the efforts of the government in improving their livelihoods.
“It is worth stating that we have the responsibility to periodically inform the citizenry about development in the district, and we are very much committed to and will do well to deliver on that mandate,” he said.
The Town Hall Meeting which was organised by the District Assembly in collaboration with the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) was also to solicit the views of the people and enable the assembly to deliver the needed service to the people.
Mr Jotie indicated that his outfit was using other platforms like creating a Facebook page and a website for the assembly to enable the citizens to access, interact, share their concerns and demand accountability from the district assembly.
He touched on government’s flagship programmes such as “Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ),” “One-Village-One-Dam (1V1D)” and the “Rearing for Food and Jobs” and renewed his resolve to enable the people to reap the maximum benefits from these programmes and other policies to improve their living standards.
On agriculture, the DCE said that 3,100 farmers benefited from the PFJ programme in 2018 and added that the assembly distributed cashew seedlings to farmers in 2018 under the Planting for Export and Rural Development programme as measures to improve their economic status.
Mr Jotie also urged the youth to embrace the government initiative of “Rearing for Food and Jobs” saying “the government is poised to support interested farmers with small ruminants and fowls for a start.”
He also informed the people about other development initiatives in other sectors including health, education, water and sanitation, security as well as other government policies and programmes such as infrastructure for poverty eradication programme being implemented in the district.
The people, on their part, raised concern about the lack of a disability resource centre for for persons with disability (PWDs) to acquire skills training and other support from benevolent organisations.
“The district has no disability resource centre, but if this is there it can help disabled persons to learn certain skills and also to get some kind of support from other organisations. What are you doing about that? asked Mr Kofi Maadugu, Wa East District Organiser for PWDs.
The people also reiterated the need for improved access to potable water, health care delivery; infrastructure such as roads, and youth skills development centre, among others, to propel the development of the district.
FROM LYDIA DARLINGTON FORDJOUR, FUNSI
