The Ashaiman Municipal Assembly, in collaboration with People’s Dialogue, a civil society organisation, on Tuesday organised a Town Hall Meeting to present the draft of its four-year Medium Term Development Plan.

The Draft Medium Term Development Plan, which had gone through a number of public hearings aimed at validating and gathering inputs from stakeholders, highlighted on thematic areas such as Ensuring and Sustaining Local Economic Development and Competitiveness in Ghana’s Private Sector.

Other areas include Accelerated Agriculture Modernisation and Agro-Based Industrial Development, Oil and Gas, Human Development, Productivity and Employment Education, Infrastructure, Energy and Human Settlement, as well as Transparency and Accountable Governance.

In his address, Mr Ibrahim Baidoo, Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), said the meeting formed part of the decentralisation agenda which would create the environment for community members to contribute towards development.

Mr Baidoo explained that all inputs identified during the previous meetings had been captured, and as such; the meeting was intended to help the various communities to understand and participate in the Assembly’s activities.

The MCE said the draft had been formulated in line with the government’s National Medium Term Policy Framework; Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda 2014-2017.

He said the Assembly would go by the four-year plan to develop the municipality, adding: “The Regional Coordinating Council that supervises our activities will monitor the Assembly; ensuring that the developmental plan is being used”.

Mr Augustine Kwame Mensah, Municipal Planning Officer, said the Assembly was established by Legislative Instrument 1889 and inaugurated as a way of deepening the decentralisation process to enhance effective governance.

In an interview with Ghana News Agency, he said the National Development Planning Commission in the bid to monitor development plans requires that the Assembly invites all stakeholders to make inputs into the local development initiative.

Touching on challenges; he said community members at the initial stages were reluctant and did not show interest; however the situation had improved.

Mr Mensah therefore called on all the assembly members to help in sensitising the public on the need to support the Assembly in carrying out its objectives, especially with regards to revenue mobilisation.

The People’s Dialogue is a civil society organisation, which has been recruited by Government to sensitise communities, on the need to take part in governance, especially at the local level.

The Town Hall Meeting comprises stakeholders such as traders, traditional authorities, Imams, persons with disability, assembly members, among others and they are given the platform to ask questions pertaining to developmental issues.