Abura-Dunkwa(C/R), Dec 26, GNA - The Abura-Asebu-Kwamankese District Assembly in the Central Region has elected Madam Aba Hagan as the Presiding Member.

Madam Hagan, a 48-year-old worker of the National Council on Women and Development (NCWD), is the first woman to be elected as the Presiding Member in the history of the Assembly.

She polled 36 out of the 39 votes cast to beat Mr Andy Amoah of the Museums and Monuments Board (MMB) in the elections supervised by the District electoral officer at Abura-Dunkwa.

The election took place at the third and last session of the Assembly for the year.

Madam Hagan thanked the Members for the confidence reposed in her and promised to use her experience in public administration to promote the aims of the Assembly for the people in the District to develop greater interest and confidence in it.

She called for maximum co-operation for the Assembly to work as a team and commended Mr Amoah for "putting up a good and gamely fight" and expressed the hope that he would make his experience available to speed up the development of the District.

Mad. Hagan called for the support of citizens of the area since the development of the district depended on collective effort. She congratulated the District Chief Executive, Mr Andrew K. Mensah, on his election as the MP-elect for Abura-Asebu- Kwamankese constituency and pledged to co-operate with him to ensure the rapid socio-economic transformation of the area.

Mr Mensah in his address expressed concern about the un-co-operative attitude of people towards the mutual health insurance scheme and charged Members of the Assembly to sensitise the people to make it operational within the next few months. He said that the assembly had started coding households towards the implementation of the scheme and charged the staff to intensify their activities.

Mr Mensah was also not happy with the communal spirit of communities benefiting from the European Union (EU) projects and appealed to the chiefs and other opinion leaders to educate the people. He announced that the Assembly had so far spent 60 million cedis on EU projects and called on tax and ratepayers to ensure prompt settlement of their obligations to strengthen the Assembly's financial base for accelerated development.

Mr Mensah enumerated the number of road works, health, school and water facilities the Assembly had undertaken with the support of the government within the past four years and expressed the hope that more would be provided in the coming years.

Mr Ephraim Donkor, Assistant Director of Education in-charge of Human Resources and Manpower Development, called on all the stakeholders in education to formulate an effective mechanism to remove all impediments to the progress of education in the district.