Mr John Agyare, Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of the Ahanta West Municipal Assembly (AWMA) in the Western Region has underscored the need to encourage businesses operating in the Municipality to do what they do better and help to provide an enabling environment for their operations.
He observed that many businesses were located within the Municipality for various business ventures and expressed happiness about their existence in the area for the fact that some of the people were employed in the companies.
He said, however, he has not seen an effective collaboration between the businesses and the Assembly as a corporate organization and for that matter, will pay a courtesy call on their management to create a platform to interact with the various businesses to share with them ideas on the potentials and challenges of the area.
He stressed that skills development and entrepreneurship was one of great concern to the Government and the Assembly in that many of the young men and women still have very little or no skills that can secure them the jobs they desire.
Mr Agyare who was speaking in an interview with the GNA said in the light of this, the Business Advisory Centre (BAC) has over the years assisted some of the youth to obtain some entrepreneurial skills, however, usually, the problem has been the startup capital for persons trained by the Centre.
He, therefore, appealed for the need to focus attention to ensure that the youth were able to establish and invest in profitable businesses and pledged the support of his office while soliciting for the support of all the stakeholders towards the Business Advisory Centre (BAC) in this direction.
The MCE also presented some key recommendations made by the Executive Committee of the Assembly at its last meeting for consideration.
Among the recommendations are that the 2022 Annual Action Plan should be approved by the House, that the 2022 Fee-fixing and Annual Budget should be approved by this House, and that the collection of property rate for private properties should be ceded to Zonal Councils.
The rest are that the Assembly should grant a request by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to use part of the Apowa Post Office as a service point for residents of that area, that the Assembly should take steps to document and protect all its lands, and that an upward adjustment of Sitting Allowances of Assembly Members should be considered.
Mr Agyare said these were some of the critical concerns that need to be considered by all the stakeholders of the Assembly and therefore called for their support to take the Ahanta West Municipality to where it deserves.
He also assured that the decisions taken were in the interest of the Municipality which will be implemented as early as practicable by Management under his leadership and thanked all the stakeholders for their attention and support so far.
“I wish to ask for your support in all that I intend to do so that together we can achieve what we all desire in terms of progress and development for our Municipality. I am aware that this House has always been united and that issues that affect the lives of our people are usually discussed dispassionately without consideration of personal interest. It is my hope that Members and Heads of Department will continue in this spirit to ensure that we deliver on our mandate to the people of Ahantaman”, he stated.
He further thanked the Assembly Members, for their overwhelming endorsement of him as the MCE, as well as all for the confidence reposed in him to serve the people and used the occasion to reiterate his gratitude to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, for nominating him for the MCE position.
