AMPOFO: PLACE PREMIUM ON INVESTING IN PEOPLE (PAGE 16, FEB 2, 2010)

THE Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, has called for a paradigm shift in the pursuit of the development agenda of district assemblies in the country.
He said instead of district assemblies concentrating on development initiatives such as providing social amenities including markets, toilets, roads and schools, they must make investments in the people the number one, to invest directly in the mainstay of their local economies to generate revenues and wealth and create employment for the people.
Speaking at a workshop to review decades of decentralisation and the district assembly system in Ghana in Koforidua, Mr Ampofo said “our development focus must aim at stimulating the growth of our local economies to generate revenues that could be recycled in the economy to address other socio-economic development challenges facing our districts”.
The one-day workshop is meant to provide a platform for key actors in the decentralisation process system to discuss the challenges facing the concept and make inputs that could improve the process.
It brought together about 85 members of the National Association of Local Government Authorities of Ghana (NALAG) including presiding and assembly members from metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies in the Greater Accra, Volta, Eastern, Western and Central regions.
It is sponsored by the NALAG, Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD), Africa 2000 Network, UNDP and Sustainable Rural Livelihood Project (SRLP).
Buttressing his point, Mr Ofosu Ampofo said for the past two decades in the experimentation of the district assembly concept, all the district assemblies had concentrated on development agenda that had overconcentrated on providing social amenities and other services at the expense of investment in the mainstay of their local economies.
Such myopic concept of development by the district assemblies had significantly undermined their capability to adopt and implement diversified development projects that could create wealth and employment and address other socio-economic challenges facing their development.
Citing an example, he indicated the Fanteakwa District for instance where there was a vast land suitable for the cultivation of pepper and citrus, the district assembly should not only focus on supporting the farmers with the necessary inputs and resources but should also acquire the needed equipment that could be used to add value to such crops to enable them to attract high prices both on the local and the international markets.
This, he said, would be the only way the district assembly could meaningfully support the farmers to raise sufficient incomes to support themselves and their families, adding that “when farmers get disposable incomes then they will be in a position to also expand their farms and spend in the interest of the local economy”.
“If we only provide the farmers with all the inputs they need to cultivate their crops but fail to build their capacity to add value to their products and create a market for them, then we can expect their bumper harvest to often go waste all the time”, he stated.
Mr Ampofo added, “If we can acquire extracting machines for the citrus farmers to extract orange juice from their produce, the juice could not only be made available to basic schools benefiting from the School Feeding Programme to improve the pupils’ nutritional requirement but could also create a ready market for the crop.”