Regional ministers from the 10 regions of the country, at their conference in Ho, have called on the Ministry of Energy to take urgent steps to avert the current shortage of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) in the country.
The call is in support of the emerging competition between domestic and commercial users in the consumption of the fuel, which is reducing the use of charcoal in some homes and its environmental impact.
This was contained in a seven-point communiqué issued at the end of the week-long third Regional Ministers Conference held on the theme: “The Better Ghana Agenda: Achievements, Challenges and the Way Forward.”
The conference took note of the indiscriminate painting of houses in communities and along ceremonial streets as modes of advertisements and called on the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to regulate the trend and bring sanity into the system.
The communiqué called for the involvement of regional ministers in the process of land acquisition to facilitate the construction of the STX housing project.
It also called on the Ministry of Roads and Highways to expand road tolls to cover all major roads in the country.
It stated that the mobile maintenance unit of the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA) should be further decentralised to make its services more effective, especially in the three northern regions of Ghana.
It further said information on payments to contractors on road projects in the regions should be communicated to the regional co-ordinating councils to enable them to effectively monitor road projects and that payments for small cost projects in the regions should be made at the regional level.
The communiqué further asked for appropriate measures to ensure that the proposed Constituency Fund for Members of Parliament (MPs) was judiciously used for the benefit of the people in the constituencies.
It proposed the speeding up of the implementation of the fiscal decentralisation process by the government and asked for the urban transport system to be implemented before the year 2012.
It urged the central government to place priority on the provision of a seed fund for newly created districts to cater for their essential infrastructure and logistical needs.
The ministers asked for the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to expedite action on the implementation of composite budgeting processes.
The conference also wanted the agricultural sector to be enhanced through the provision of more milling machines to facilitate the milling of paddy rice in the country and that new dams needed to be constructed in the three northern regions and existing ones rehabilitated to stop the exodus of the youth to the south for non-existent jobs.
The communiqué said the conference was satisfied with efforts by the government to stabilise the economy and that the government had made Ghana self-sufficient in its energy needs.
The Volta Regional Minister, Mr Joseph Amenowode, who takes over from the Brong- Ahafo Regional Minister, Mr Nyamekye-Marfo, as chairman of conference, announced that the next venue for their meeting would be the Upper East Region in March next year but with a review meeting fixed for Kumasi in January.
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