Mr. Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, Deputy Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, has urged prominent citizens of deprived communities residing in cities to contribute to the development of their areas.
He said it was sad to note that majority of the prominent and wealthy indigenes of some local communities tended to forget their roots and fail to contribute a little to improve upon the lot of their deprived brethren in the villages.
Mr. Ankrah said this when he addressed some assembly members them in Bimbilla on Tuesday to explain government policies to them and also inspect some development projects in the district.
He said the government had reviewed the decentralization process and drawn up a comprehensive action plan to ensure effective participation in the district assemblies and at the grassroots level.
He said the number of electoral areas would go up from 5,000 to 6,000, while unit committee which previously had 15 members would be reduced to five.
The Deputy Minister said another significant change was that a candidate could now mount a platform of his/her own while an organisation
other than a political party can make resources available to the Electoral Commission for the purposes of mounting a platform for the common use of all the candidates.
He said the election of assembly members would continue to remain non-partisan, stressing that as assembly members they were expected to
discuss issues on development alone and not political matters.
Some members of the assembly gave the suggestion that while the position of the District Chief Executive should remain an appointed one the DCEs could be made to serve in other districts or regions.
They were of the opinion that this would ensure smooth administration with little political interference especially in the area of revenue mobilisation which they said was being interfered with by some DCEs.
Mr. Sam Nasamu Asabigi, the Deputy Northern Regional Minister, commended the security services in Bimbilla for maintaining the peace.