Nii Laryea Afotey-Agbo, Greater Accra Regional Minister, has said chieftaincy disputes are the main threat to the rapid development of the Region.

He said such conflicts which sometimes led to the loss of property and lives, diverted state resources which could have been used for development projects.

Nii Afotey-Agbo said this when addressing the opening session of a three-day Greater Accra Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) meeting in Accra.

He appealed to the assemblies to constitute conflict resolution management committees to work closely with the District Security Committees to intervene in resolving and preventing all forms of conflicts in their districts.

Nii Afotey-Agbo said the perennial flooding in the urban areas had been attributed to poor and inadequate drainage systems, unauthorised citing of buildings and poor rubbish disposal practices that had resulted in choked gutters.

He entreated planning authorities to enforce bye-laws on buildings to ensure that people did not build on waterways saying “last year, we lost valuable properties as a result of our inactions and poor environmental sanitation”.

Nii Afotey-Agbo reminded the gathering to sustain the clean-up campaign launched throughout the country last year adding "the time for action is now".

He said it was important that assembly members worked closely with the business community as effective development partners, saying the private sector was the engine of growth of the economy hence the need to create the enabling environment for the sector to grow.

Mr. Alfred Okoe Vanderpuije, Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive Officer, highlighted development projects that had been executed within the metropolis and those that were on-going as well as those in the pipeline.

He said the AMA had completed projects in the education, health, sanitation and management, road works, drainage and flood controls; saying it was now engaged in the building of infrastructure for schools under the millennium city schools to put up three storey blocks with 18 classrooms, computer laboratories and libraries.

Mr. Vanderpuije said 76 classroom units within the metropolis had been completed and would soon be inaugurated.

He said about 18,500 furniture would be distributed to schools in the metropolis by the end of the year in addition to 5,000 bins that had already been distributed and 10,000 more bins would be supplied this year to assist in the sanitation problems within the metropolis.

Mr. Vanderpuije said the non-availability of an effective liquid waste disposal would be dealt with in due course while 42 public toilets would be built with 31 of them in schools, 23 in the communities and three for hospitals within the metropolis.

He said 52 minor drains are currently under construction at Darkuman, Sakaman, Awoshie and Dadeben, while street lights installation and maintenance as well as traffic control rooms would be tackled soon. **