The Ho Municipal Assembly, with the support of the Municipal Education Service, has taken pragmatic measures to promote education in the area. As a result, it will fund, at least, one mock examination for final year students of the Senior High Schools (SHS) and Junior High Schools (JHS).
The Assembly would also promote the study of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) in the Municipality, therefore, it would soon convert a government facility at Hordzo into a Skills Training Centre to help train teenagers, mostly those who were into the motorcycles and tricycles businesses, to acquire employable skills.
The Ho Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Mr. Divine Richard Komla Bosson, who said this in his sessional address at the General Assembly meeting in Ho, continued that the Municipality had a comparative advantage in agriculture, and the Assembly would vigorously promote and support agricultural activities in the area.
Mr. Bosson said, as a responsible Assembly, it would lead by example, and had resolved with management to start a farm project this farming season, and further said studies had revealed that three major cash crops, namely, cocoa, cashew and oil palm, did very well in the Municipality, and that the Assembly would establish a nursery along the River Tordze to facilitate the distribution of seedlings to farmers.
Touching on revenue collection, the MCE expressed joy over the marginal increase in Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), which he attributed to the hard work of the personnel.
Mr. Bosson, however, said the automation project of revenue collection had been put on hold, because the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) would take over property rate collection of the assemblies.
He said the challenge faced was that about GH¢60,000 of the Assembly’s Internally Generated Funds (IGF) were used to pay staff salaries.
The MCE said it was unacceptable to use such funds to pay workers, and said the good news was that the Assembly was working hard to roll all the staff onto the National Payroll, further disclosing that the Assembly had, so far, migrated over three staff onto the National Payroll, adding that in 2021, the Assembly generated a total of GH¢2,635,478.02 in revenue.
He proposed a by-law which would make it an obligation for all artisans within the Municipality to register and be certified by the Assembly to ensure easy identification and regulation of their activities, as well as providing them with the needed support when it became necessary.
Mr. Bosson also stressed the need for residents in the Municipality to adhere strictly to sanitary regulations, to enable the area maintain its position as the cleanest city in the country, and charged the Municipal Environmental Health office to prosecute those who would flout the sanitation regulations.
The MCE reminded the assembly members and residents that the greenery of localities within the Municipality was one of the reasons it was referred to as ‘Oxygen City’, but the environment was now being threatened by bushfires.
He, therefore, urged the Assembly to promulgate by-laws which would make chiefs take appropriate measures to prevent bushfires in their communities.
From Samuel Agbewode, Ho
