The Greater Accra Regional Coordinating Council (GARCC) has held its second general meeting for the year 2023.
The meeting brought together Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs), Presiding Members of all the 29 Assemblies, heads of departments, representatives from the Regional House of Chiefs and a representative from the National Development of Planning Commission to the RCC to discuss issues of mutual interest and benefit to the region.
The meeting offered some MMDCEs an opportunity to highlight on key initiatives they had taken towards development within their Municipalities as well as some challenges encountered.
The Regional Minister, Hon. Henry Quartey, in delivering his address emphasised on several initiatives undertaken by his office as well as some pertinent issues that were addressed.
He reminded the gathering that the phase two of government’s flagship programme “Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ2.0)” was already underway and that there was the need for all to get the necessary information from various District Agriculture Directors.
He charged Members of the Council to support such programmes in their respective jurisdictions.
On the issue of sanitation, Hon. Quartey lamented that “sanitation and waste management in the various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) continues to be a challenge despite the Regional Coordinating Council’s strategic intervention with the let’s Make Greater Accra Work agenda and the Operation Clean Your Frontage (OCYF) campaign.”
In view of this, the RCC as part of measures to sustain the initiative, has appointed ambassadors for the campaign who would be working closely with all stakeholders in the coming months.
HON. Henry Quartey also disclosed that during the second half of the year, the regional coordinating council, through the Regional Planning Coordinating unit (RPCU) has conducted two monitoring activities, one on the preparedness towards the District Performance Assessment Tool (DPAT) and the second on evaluation on the Revenue Improvement Action Plan (RIAP).
About a few days ago, the results of the DPAT VII assessment as conducted by the Ministry of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development revealed that unfortunately, three of our assemblies could not meet the compliance indicators and have lost out on some investment grant which could have been used to improve the lives and conditions of our people,” he disclosed.
“This certainly is not good enough and I wish to entreat MMDCEs to take keen interest in such exercises moving forward,” he charged.
On revenue mobilisation, he said even though the report on the evaluation on the RIAP conducted by the RPCU is not out yet, briefings he has received “indicate that there is more we can all do to improve upon internally generated funds at the various Assemblies.
He called on all members of the Council to continue providing support to the Regional Coordinating Council to ensure that development is brought to the doorstep of our people.