General News of Sunday, 30 September 2018
Source: citinewsroom.com
2018-09-30
Franklin Cudjoe, President of policy think tank, IMANI Ghana
President of Policy Think Tank, IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe wants the government to scrap the Ministry of Special Development Initiatives.
According to him, the Ministry continues to duplicate roles in the system leading to a waste of the country’s scarce resources.
The Ministry, headed by Mavis Hawa Koomson is one of the new ministries created by President Akufo-Addo after he won the 2016 general elections.
But many Ghanaians believe, the Ministry is useless since not much has been seen as part of its work.
Speaking on Citi FM/ TV news analysis programme, The Big Issue on Saturday, Mr. Cudjoe said the Ministry has involved itself in water and sanitation challenges which are being tackled already by existing functional institutions.
“I don’t understand why the ministry of sanitation is actually going ahead to take over the community water and sanitation and trying to invest in it when there are private players doing well, in fact, there are communities interested in paying a little in order to maintain the water systems.”
Mr. Cudjoe indicated President Akufo-Addo could reduce his elephant-sized government by collapsing the Special Initiatives Ministry.
“If you give me the opportunity I could go into some of the reasons why government size should be reduced. The ministry of Special Initiatives should not exist, and it is an agency of this ministry that is doing this wasting government money when there are a lot of opportunities for the community water sector to actually grow.”
We’re on course to delivering all our promises – Hawa Koomson
The Minister for Special Development Initiatives, Hawa Koomson said her ministry has started implementing several projects under the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication programme to improve livelihoods across the country.
The Ministry, according to her, had undertaken projects in 275 constituencies with the one million cedis allocated to it.
Mrs. Koomson said some of the projects include the building of warehouses, sanitation facilities, provision of safe water and the construction of dams under the government’s One District, One Dam program.
“The Ministry has rolled out projects at the constituency level including 1000 community mechanized water systems with solar powered panels underwater for all projects.
Under sanitation, 1000 institutional water closet toilet systems with solar power mechanized borehole.
Under the One Village One Dam initiative, 570 dams in the three regions of the North are undergoing construction and when completed will provide multi-purpose water facilities and promote all year round farming and under the One District One Warehouse project, we have commenced the construction of 1000 metric- tons re-fabricated warehouses”.
She said the Ministry had initiated processes to ensure that each of the 57 constituencies within the three regions of the North benefits from the One Village One Dam by the end of 2018.