The Northern Regional Minister, Salifu Saeed, has directed all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in the region to disregard a circular which requested them to pay Ghc5,000 each to fund President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s three-day official visit beginning October 6.
The Minister in an official statement copied to citifmonline. com implied that, his office did not endorse the earlier memo.
[contextly_sidebar id=”VnZteGnoaHBMDUmyK54e0U70DAfaNgzd”]The statement however admitted that, the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives’ caucus in the region, voluntarily made the earlier proposal which his office did not endorse.
Salifu Saeed has therefore dismissed the earlier memo which went viral on both mainstream and social media.
According to him, the President’s trip is to be fully sponsored by the Presidency. The announcement about the payment became public after citifmonline.com sighted a copy of the leaked circular.
Don’t pay for Nana Addo’s visit – O.B Amoah to MMDAs
Meanwhile, the latest decision by the Northern Regional Minister to the MMDAs, comes after a Deputy Local Government Minister, O.B. Amoah, stated on the Citi Breakfast Show, that his outfit was unaware of the directive.
He also asked the MMDAs not to pay the amount.
What has been the practice?
Assemblies bearing part of the cost for presidential visits is not new.
Although the presidency has its own budgetary allocation, assemblies in all successive governments are often forced to bear part of such cost for the president’s trips, despite the huge financial challenges most of them are faced with, which hampers development.
Sadly, most of these assemblies have not received their full budgetary allocations from the Central Government, and they also generate very little on their own.
Below is the official statement.
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By: Abdul Karim Naatogmah/citifmonline.com/Ghana