Sunyani Sept.3, GNA - Mr Edward P. Karbo, Director of Department of Town and Country Planning, on Tuesday called for the amendment of outmoded planning legislations hampering the efficient operation of the Department.

He said inadequate staff capacity for effective land use and management and lack of vehicles for staff to move to settlement areas to resolve problems had also combined to cripple the Department.

Mr Karbo was addressing a durbar of staff of the Department in Sunyani as part of his three-day visit to the Brong Ahafo Region. He noted that symptoms of the Department's inability to cope with the momentum of urban development were overwhelming at the peri-urban areas.

Efforts are, however, being made to transform the Department into an effective, technically competent and proactive institution to enable it to play its role towards national development, the Director said. Mr Karbo asked the staff to stop rampant and unjustified changes to approved planning schemes, which he said undermined the integrity of the Department.

Mr Karbo asked the staff to avoid the re-zoning of sites earmarked on planning schemes for community facilities without regard to due statutory procedures as such practices generated inter-departmental and public conflicts.

He said the Department had identified six priority and key result areas to be pursued in the immediate to medium-term periods. Mr Karbo mentioned the areas as restructuring and institutional reforms, human resource capacity development, geographic information system development, guide implementation of planning schemes and public awareness creation.

The draft final report on the restructuring consultations has been completed and would be submitted to the Sector Ministry for further action, he said.

Mr Vincent Asigbee, Brong Ahafo Regional Director of the Department, noted that the existing environmental sanity and development orderliness in most of the district capitals and other urban settlements bore testimony to the people's resolve to conform to layout plans over the years.

He, however, said the success story of physical planning was on the downward trend of late due to a myriad of problems including logistic supply, staff shortage, low remuneration, obsolete and outdated equipment and poor physical working environment, among other things. He appealed to District Assemblies to support the Department to enable it to function well.