Municipal Chief Executive for Bolgatanga Rex Asanga has detailed how his predecessor thwarted Member of Parliament for the area Isaac Adongo’s attempt to put up a police station at Sirigu.
According to Rex Asanga, the MP had intended to construct the facility, which has become a subject of controversy, years ago.
However, Joseph Amiyuure, who was then the MCE, failed to grant his (Adongo’s) request to utilize the MP’s share of the Common Fund for that purpose, ultimately preventing the building of the station.
It was not until he (Asanga) took over as the MCE that the MP was allowed to access the fund and subsequently build the facility, he claimed.
“Do you know that the MP wanted to build that police station years back? My predecessor disallowed him. He wouldn’t release the money for the police station to be constructed.
I came and I said look ‘this thing about preventing MPs from access to their funds, we are denying our communities of development, why should I do that?’. That’s how the project was built. We advertised and awarded the contract,” he stated.
Mr. Asanga said this in reaction to concerns by the opposition National Democratic Congress over the inclusion of the project on government Performance Tracker.
The NDC accused government of laying claims to the police station and a CHPS Compound, both of which, they said, were constructed by its MPs in the Bolgatanga Municipality and demanded a retraction and an apology.
But Rex Asanga finds the hue and cry by the NDC as unnecessary and noisy.
He argued that such reactions are the reason MMDCEs do not cooperate with and in some instances, block opposition MPs from accessing the fund meant for the development of the various constituencies.
He said although government instructed the exclusion of alll projects funded by the MPs’ share of the Common Fund, there’s absolutely nothing wrong including them since they are constructed with state funds.
“These are the type of noisy that sometimes get MMDCEs trying to scuttle or work as if they are in competition with the MPs. When decide to go political over little things like this, you are only encouraging what some people are doing, trying to thwart the MP’s efforts which I don’t think is fair”.
