Akosombo, May 15, GNA - Mr. Charles Bintim, Minister for Local Government, has called for the integration of the education, health and forestry sectors into the district assembly system to accelerate national development.

"We think that other important stakeholders must be brought on board, two of these sectors, education and health account for seventy per cent of the expenditures of the local government bodies," he said. Mr. Bintim made the call at a three-day stakeholders' consultation forum at Akosombo being attended by members of the Parliamentary Committees on Local Government and Rural Development and Finance to create the political goodwill and legislative support for resource allocation for the Local Government Service.

Nana Boakye Danquah, Chairman of the Local Government Service Commission, said decentralisation was working in spite of the seemingly nagging challenges confronting it.

"We shall have no running battles with any group or idea. We would do what the law says we should do."

Nana Boakye Danquah noted that a strong and efficient local government system guaranteed the development of modern nations. "This is the best and simple lesson of history that we must heed." He said the Council would encourage human resource capacity building as the basis for the implementation of the decentralisation programme, adding that, "cities do not make nations but the rural man and what he does and that is about local government".

The Chairman said power must be brought to the local level for the ordinary Ghanaian to participate effectively in national development. 15 May 05