Ho, May 16, GNA-The Ho Municipal Assembly on Tuesday begun talks with Local Government experts from City of Victoria, in Canada on modalities for the establishment of a Sister City relationship between the Canadian city and the Ho Municipality. The week-long talks would cover areas of mutual interest and of comparative advantage to developmental programmes of the two local government areas.

Mr Alan Lave, Mayor of the Regional Capital District of Victoria is leading the Canadian team of six while, Mr Mawutor Goh, Ho Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) is leading the Ho side.

The Ho Municipality is one of the six local government areas in Ghana benefiting from the Canadian government funded African Local Governance Project, through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

The rest are Wa, in the Upper West region, Kumasi, Ashanti region, Sunyani, Brong Ahafo region, Suhum, Eastern region and Elmina, Central region.

Ms Gladys Tetteh, Project Officer of the National Association of Local Governments (NALAG), which is the coordinating body, said deals under the cooperation pact would not include infrastructure development. Mr. Goh said it was hoped the benefits of the various partnerships to be established between Canadian and Ghanaian cities, especially in the areas of skills building would serve as reference resource support for local governance in Ghana.

Mr. Lave said confines of the partnership would only begin to emerge after the talks.

The talks would include briefings on how the local governance system works in the two countries. 16 May 06