The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) on Thursday elected Nana Joe Nsiah-Awuah, Assemblyman for Dadiesoaba and a Tutor of T. I. Ahmadiyya Secondary School as its new Presiding Member at a meeting in Kumasi.

His election followed the withdrawal of two previous contestants, Dr Edward Prempeh and Oheneba Agyemang Atwereboanda, both government appointees. Nana Nsiah-Awuah polled 85 votes out of 88 votes cast.

The assembly also elected Nana Kofi Senya, Assemblyman for New Suame and Mr Amofa Sarpong, a government appointee to represent the KMA at the Electoral College to elect the Ashanti Regional representative to the Council of State, Nana Nsiah-Awuah thanked the assembly members for the honour done him and called for unity of purpose and co-operation to enable them to collectively work to bring about positive change in the lives of the people in the Metropolis.

Mr Sampson K. Boafo, Ashanti Regional Minister, deplored the so many unauthorised and unproductive meetings that were organised by assembly members in the previous years just to qualify them to draw huge sitting allowances.

The Minister said "this situation is unacceptable and must stop, stressing I was upset to read the Chronicle publication of March 30, 2001 that the KMA spent 481 million cedis on sitting allowance alone for last year".

Mr Boafo said according to records in his office, the KMA has since the inception of the District Assemblies' Common Fund in 1994 received a total of 14.2 billion cedis for development.

He noted that if this substantial amount of resources transferred to the assembly had been efficiently used it could have impacted positively on the lives of the residents.

The Regional Minister warned that, henceforth, any mismanagement of resources by any worker of the KMA would no longer be tolerated and directed that all funds should be judiciously used for the specific projects for which they were released.