NDC shoots back at NPP?Over Assembly?s ?con job?

The Guide in a lead story says the NDC government has sharply criticised what the NPP recently described as the ?big con job? over the purchase of sanitation equipment under a Ghana government guaranteed Canadian loan close to $15 million.

The paper says the NPP, led by Mr Kwamena Bartels and Mrs Gladys Asmah, both MPs, threatened at a news conference recently that they would drag the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) to court for going into an agreement of 22.54 billion cedis per year, which the party thinks the Assembly cannot honour, describing the pact as ?a dubious contract?.

The Guide says Mr Kwamena Ahwoi, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, however, said on Monday that under the national environmental sanitation policy approved recently by Cabinet, sanitation is now to be given national budgetary support.

The Minister is said to have defended the loan agreement and the Assembly when he commissioned vehicles, machinery and equipment in Accra. According to the paper, Mr Ahwoi said emphatically that the agreement between the AMA and City and Country Limited is not a ?con job? but is based on the fact that "sanitation problems in the cities and especially in Accra, are too enormous to be left to the assemblies??.