The Ministry of Finance on Thursday said it released about 21.6 billion cedis to all beneficiaries of mineral and timber royalties on April 2 and urged the various communities to use the money for development.

A statement signed by Ala-u-deen Ismail-Rashid, Public Relations Officer, said the Ministry had fully settled the outstanding mineral royalties for 2000 amounting to about 11.5 billion cedis

It has also released about 12.7 billion cedis to the Administrator of Stool Lands to fully settle the outstanding mineral royalties for 2001. It said out of the outstanding mineral royalties of about 15.3 billion cedis for 2002, an amount of 150 million cedis had been released to the Akrokerri Stool as part payment of their outstanding Mineral royalties for the year 2002.

An additional amount of about 7.6 billion cedis, which is 50 per cent of the balance, has been released to the Administrator of Stool Lands as part-payment to all the beneficiaries. The statement said for this year no advice has been received from Internal Revenue Service on the transfer of mineral royalties.

It said the Ministry had fully settled the outstanding timber royalties of 15.309 billion cedis covering the period 1991-2000. The Ministry said the Forestry Services Division had paid the total timber royalties of 7.2 billion cedis for 2001 to the various beneficiaries.

For 2002, a total amount of 16.1 billion cedis in respect of timber royalties had been paid to the various beneficiaries for the period January to September 2002 by the Forestry Services Division.

"It is the hope and prayer of the Minister of Finance that these huge releases to various traditional areas will be used to enhance development in the relevant areas," the statement said. The Ministry urged Members of Parliament and District Chief Executives to encourage the areas to utilise these resources for development.