More than 10,000 streetlights have been procured for onward distribution to all 29 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in the Greater Accra Region to light up communities as part of efforts to reduce the incidence of night robberies and thefts.

Greater Accra Regional Minister, Henry Quartey, who disclosed this, said, it was critical that safety and security of residents in the region were enhanced to enable economic activities to develop.

He was speaking yesterday in Accra during the final Greater Accra Regional Coordinating council (RCC) meeting of the year.

The meeting was in line with the Regional Security Council’s (REGSEC’s) obligation geared towards strengthening decentralised system of governance, deepening popular participation and harmonising plans and programmes to achieve the overall development of the region.

It was attended by Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives, representatives from the Regional House of Chiefs, Members of Parliament (MPs) Presiding Members of the various Assemblies and Heads of Departments.

On measures to improve sanitation, Mr Quartey tasked the Assemblies to ensure the deployment of a systematic approach to sensitise residents, corporate organisations and community members on their roles and responsibilities in waste management.

He said MMDAs were expected to create extensive awareness on the Sanitation and Cleaning bye-laws and ensure commitment to its enforcement. 

“Let me emphasise here and now that without strict enforcement of the bye-laws we cannot achieve much so the prosecution unit of the assemblies should sharpen their skills for action,” Mr Quartey added.

He cautioned motorcycle riders to abide by the traffic regulations saying “no rider should run a red light and desist from carrying illegal number of passengers”. 

On health, Mr Quartey expressed concern about rising COVID-19 cases in the region and advised residents to strictly adhere to the protective protocols.

Within the last three weeks, he revealed that, the daily reported cases of COVID-19 had increased to an average of 80 to 100 new cases daily adding that “currently, the region has recorded 71,351 confirmed cases with 70,325 of the cases recovered and 722 cases currently actively ill as of December 18,2021,” Mr Quartey said. 

The Regional Minister challenged the MMDAs to implore strategic and creative mechanisms to increase their revenues significantly to meet their target for the year, attributed revenue leakages to embezzlement, carbon slipping, delay in depositing revenue collected, among others, were issues of worry to the RCC.  

Mr Quartey called for the resourcing of Audit Unit of the assemblies to be able to play their role in ensuring internal control processes were operating effectively and efficiently to minimise incidence of corruption.  

On education, indicated that an analysis of Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) performance over the last four years had shown steady decline in performance from 65.9 per cent in 2017 to 63 per cent in 2020.