Known as the ‘special initiatives committee’, its mandate is to solicit and mobilise funds from individuals and corporate organisations to address developmental challenges in the area.

The committee is expected to identify the critical needs of communities in the municipality and solicit external financial assistance to address the identified needs.

The move is to help reduce the pressure on the assembly and the government to undertake various developmental projects in the municipality.

Committee members

The committee is chaired by Professor David Millar, a former Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of Development Studies (UDS) and President of the Millar Open University for Transdisciplinary and Cultural Studies.

Challenges

Speaking at the ceremony, the Municipal Chief Executive for Bolgatanga, Mr Rex Asanga explained that the assembly had a lot of needs in the area of education, health, water and sanitation among others which needed urgent support.

He said “unfortunately, the assembly’s Internally Generated Funds (IGF) and funds from the central government are insufficient to tackle the critical needs of the municipality head-on for the benefit of the people”.

“It is against this backdrop that the municipality, under my leadership, has set up this special initiatives committee to solicit financial support from individuals, corporate institutions and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to fund some developmental projects in the municipality,” he said.

He noted that the committee had become very necessary to serve as a vehicle through which people who expressed interest in supporting the agenda can contribute to the development of the municipality.

Coordination

He appealed to corporate bodies and public-spirited individuals to come to the aid of the municipality and contribute immensely to its progress.

“I expect the committee to help the municipal assembly to identify critical areas of need and package them nicely and sell them to donors to come to the aid of the municipality in its quest to improve the lot of the people,” Mr Asanga said.

He said members appointed to the committee were seasoned and experienced individuals and I have no doubt whatsoever that they will work to achieve the objective for which they were put together”.

“Currently, we have more than 40 basic schools that need new classroom blocks or furniture which is very huge and beyond the capacity of the municipal assembly,” the DCE said, noting that “if we are to solely rely on the assembly’s IGF and central government support, it would take so many years to improve the conditions in such schools to enhance teaching and learning”.

Collective responsibility

For his part, Prof. Millar said some people are of the view that the government collects taxes and should, therefore, develop communities, while others are of the opinion that communities on their own can initiate development projects and attain them it faster than waiting for government’s limited resources.

He said the setting up of the committee was in line with the general concern that development everywhere is a collective responsibility and not that of only the government, saying “as a committee, our work will be voluntary in order not to overburden the assembly’s scarce finances”.