A section of participants at the forum
The Builsa South District Assembly in the Upper East Region has earmarked agriculture, health, education and water and sanitation as priority areas in its district medium term development plan to receive more attentions and investments.
The district medium term development plan, which will span from 2018 to 2021, will also address the expansion of the school feeding programme and promotion of issues that border on good governance and peace and security.
At a public forum at Fumbisi to solicit inputs from stakeholders to finalise the preparation of the of the district medium term development plan, the District Chief Executive (DCE) for the Builsa South District, Daniel Kwame Gariba, assured that the assembly will periodically seek inputs from stakeholders as the assembly sets the development agenda of the district.
He called on the chiefs and others who play leadership roles in their communities to keep advising residents to see themselves as being involved in the development of their communities and the district.
The Builsa South District Assembly has set itself up to develop a four-year district medium term development plan to guide the development of the district and once that is done, Mr Gariba hinted that the assembly’s technocrats would abide by the plan to bring about the desired result.
“For the purpose of harmonisation of National Development Planning, each district assembly is mandated by the Local Government Act 2016, Act 936 Section 82 to carry out planning function in their areas of jurisdiction. These planning functions are, however, done by the District Planning Coordinating Unit in accordance with the National Planning Commission’s guidelines. The era when planning was done and imposed on people are far gone. Today, it is done and owned by the people through stakeholders involvement and popular participation,” he pointed out.
The DCE called on community leaders not to do anything that would undermine or frustrate any effort at implementing the development plan in their communities.
 FROM Ebo Bruce-Quansah, Fumbisi