Kufuor government accused of squandering street-naming cash

President John Kufuor         Government has accused the former New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration of misusing funds for the street naming project. The Kufuor administration allocated GH¢6,000,000 billion for street naming in its national budget for 2006 with a pilot scheme in Asante Akyem in the Ashanti Region. But four years on the Mills-led government says the money was not used for the intended purpose. Deputy Local Government Minister, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, tells Joy News the ministry is now working on a draft street naming policy to start the project. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD), is expected to complete work on a draft policy framework on street naming and property addressing to pave way for commencement of the exercise in the country by June. Mr Joseph Yieleh Chireh, the sector minister, announced this when he addressed the opening session at a day's validation workshop organised by the ministry for stakeholders to make inputs into the draft policy and manual on Tuesday. The draft manual outlined key elements of the exercise including policy on street addressing, overview of the system, detailed implementation activities, institutional arrangements for implementation at the national, regional and district levels as well as technical details. Mr Yieleh Chireh said absence of the system was seriously affecting revenue mobilisation and activities of emergency agencies such as fire, security and ambulance service, making them to encounter difficulty in locating specific areas where these services were needed urgently. He said many cities in the country had experienced extremely rapid growth but had been under-serviced in terms of social services such as water and electricity because of lack of spatial reference to facilitate location identification. Mr Yieleh Chireh said over the years, national responses to street naming and property addressing systems had been piecemeal; not sufficiently integrated and holistic, therefore MLGRD developed the comprehensive national policy framework to guide its implementation in the country. "This will ensure harmonisation, consistency, efficiency and standardisation of this system in the various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs)," he said. Mr Yieleh Chireh urged participants to critically assess the document and make meaningful contribution to make the implementation effective and efficient. Mr Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, said the implementation was long overdue and called for critical assessment of the document to ensure efficiency when implemented. Source: GNA