Opinions of Monday, 12 February 2007

Columnist: Amankwah, Nana Kofi

The Fruition of KMA

Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly has suffered infrastructure problems because of lack of strong leadership administrator and projects form Kufour’s NPP administration in metropolitan areas.

Since Miss Patricia Appiagyei assumed the office of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly duties as chief executives, no progress has being achieved under her leadership, as compared to her predecessor who made major innovative changes in the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly.

On Friday 19th January 2007, at Kumasi, Miss Patricia Appiagye indicated that “the Kumasi metropolitan assembly had plans to build dinning facilities for the schools to reduce the incidence of eating in unhealthy surrounding”. The point is, does this individual understand her duties of governing a city? Does she acknowledge that Ghana does not use a federalist system to govern the country? If the government has implemented a social program for the Ministry of Education it is not her duty to provide them with dinning rooms. The Ministry of Education that is in charge for these programs should provide dinning rooms for these schools. They know that these children cannot, nor should they eat, school lunches from open compounds from various school facilities. If the government does not have the funds develop programs to build school kitchens, dinning rooms and better restrooms then there is no need for the government to implement such projects.

Patricia Appiagyei wanted to use city revenues to build dinning rooms for urban schools and leave the schools in the suburban areas behind. It is the government’s duty to provide these rooms for every school in the country. Patricia Appiagyei cannot misuse the city revenues to reward her sweetheart contractors to build dinning rooms and get her kick backs from them. Patricia Appiagyei don’t you know that diverting the City revenues for the ministry of education projects will hurt the poor and put a dagger in the heart of Kumasi’s metropolitan assembly fiscal budget? This individual doesn’t know how to implement a domestic policy that will benefit the resident of the metropolitan area. The people who has established their own markets at the sofo-line round –about, these revenues can be used to relocate them. This will reduce the traffic congestion in the area.

These funds could also be used to expand the Bantoma and Kroforom markets. Individuals who have established their market behind the Asanteman secondary school can be relocated and traffics will be reduced leading to Kejetia areas. This will enable those individuals who are doing business on the sidewalk to find markets place to do their business and support their families. This is how you improve socioeconomic conditions for people to become self sufficient. The Old Tafo markets can be expanded Mamponteng market, which has been recklessly destroyed by Kufour’s DCE Akwasi Yeboah and his NPP government, can be rebuild and support families. These funds can be use to rebuilt Manhyia clinic which was destroyed by your fellow KMA chairman Akwasi Agyeman and named the Metropolitan clinic. The lack of vision for the city’s development through the eye of Patricia Appiagyei signifies that this individual does not know what she is doing. Ever since she has held her current position, she has never implemented any domestic polices that will benefit the residents in Kumasi. This individual thinks the duties of Kumasi Chief Executives are akin to a fashion show.

Patricia Appiagyei always wears tight clothes so she cannot go to the project sites to inspect the areas because she feels she is too dressed up for these sites. This is very sad. Kufour always appoints people who are not competent for the positions they hold. Kufuor does not think about the common people’s welfare, has only interest is that of his family, which has acquired hotels and shopping malls through him. This Kufuor think the people of Kumasi and Kwabre are foolhardy, so he can appoint anyone without management skills to handle their economic affairs. Even if the whistleblowers sent a message to him he will not remove the transgressors. The people of the Volta region are very proud of Jerry Rawlings for what he did for them. Agyekum Kufuor will soon find out when he leaves office about consequences. The people of Kumasi will realize that they now should vote for their interests in the 2008 elections. The status of Patricia Appiagyei job approval is an “F”.

Nana Kofi Amankwah (New York)

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