General News of Sunday, 12 March 2017
Source: Graphic.com.gh
2017-03-12
Minister of Zongo and Inner City Development, Alhaji Abubakar Sadiqque Boniface
The Minister of Zongo and Inner City Development, Alhaji Abubakar Sadiqque Boniface has stated that his ministry, with the help of other stakeholders, will tackle sanitation problems to enable people live healthy lives.
“If the citizens of the country are always getting sick, then a lot of resources would be invested into the health sector and that wouldn’t be good for the growth of the country’s economy because other sectors would be deprived of resources,” he added.
Speaking with the Daily Graphic, minister disclosed that his ministry has the mandate to improve the lives of people in terms of economic empowerment, security, less crime and provision of more social infrastructure.
“Most of the time when projects are being implemented people focus on the macro sector and leave the micro sector which is very bad, if some parts of the city can be tarred and be safe to live, why should another section be dusty and an unsafe place to live?”, he stated.
He said the outfit would also institute an educational scholarship to help the brilliant children in Zongo communities for them to attain higher educational levels as a means of making education look attractive to others in such communities.,
Relocation
He also mentioned that slum dwellers would be relocated, citing that during the Kufuor administration, a project was started to house those in the slums but it was halted due to a change of government. “We will continue with those projects in order to get rid of the slums,” he said.
Budget allocation
Touching on the complaints regarding the budgetary allocation to the Presidency, Alhaji Boniface explained that the Presidency had six ministries under it and they all had budgets.
“The amount is, therefore, needed to run the affairs of each ministry,” he said.
“Those complaining are just trying to politicise the whole issues; new ministries have been created and they are all under the Presidency; the money would be used for good projects and even when calculated and spread across the ministries you will realise that it is not enough”, he added.
