Mr Akwasi Opong-Fosu, Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, on Thursday said a comprehensive policy on Local Economic Development has been finalized.

He was speaking at the opening ceremony of the three-day 2014 Regional Ministers conference at Busua in the Ahanta West District.

Mr Fosu said the policy is expected to be disseminated to Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAS) to improve the local economy.

He said a lot had been done to further deepen the decentralization process and the local governance system in the country.

Mr Fosu said notable among what was being done were the implementation of the reviewed decentralization policy framework and action plan, the formulation of a comprehensive Urban Development Plan and the implementation of the street naming and the property addressing system in the MMDAs.

He said his Ministry had also put together a team of experts to work on the Draft Consolidated Local Government Bill and the Draft National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) Regulations and the National Development Planning System Regulations to smoothen the rough edges in the implementation of the country’s decentralized governance and local government administration.

Mr Fosu said a lot of resources were transferred by his Ministry to all MMDAs to pursue various development programmes and projects last year, despite the challenges and these had yielded some dividends at the local level.

He said this year, a number of activities would be carried out by his Ministry in collaboration with other partners and the most crucial one was the District Level Elections, which would be organized by the Electoral Commission.

He urged the Regional Ministers Conference to support the Ministry in this regard for successful elections.

Mr Ebenezer Teye Addo, Western Regional Minister, said about 401 km of the region’s total trunk roads of 1,642 km were at various levels of construction at a total cost of 735 million Ghana Cedis.

The roads under construction included the Tarkwa-Bogoso-Ayanfuri road, which had the “Appearing almost in all annual government budgets, since independence and had never seen the light of day”, he said.

Mr Addo said, “This 93 km road was under construction and was expected to be completed by July 2016, according to the contractor and consultants of the project”.

He said government was in the process of rehabilitating another 160 km of trunk road under the Oil Enclave Roads.

Mr Addo said a total of 679 km stretch of feeder roads in the region were at different levels of construction and rehabilitation and these would cost government 131 million Ghana Cedis.

He said five different water supply projects were under construction in five communities and these projects were expected to be completed within eight months.

Okogyeman Kwaku Gyamprah III, Member of the Council of State and Omanhene of Sefwi Chirano Traditional Area, who presided, said good governance entailed efficient and effective use of resources and as such, government was expected to enhance grassroots participation in decision making for national growth and development.

He said in addition, government had to pay attention to perceived corruption in the country, adding, unfortunately, corruption was often associated with politicians and in this way, giving the impression the rest of the society was not involved.

Okogyeman Gyamprah said, “It is my believe that for the fight against corruption to succeed, we must go beyond the politician and look at society as whole as well as the judiciary, public service, the Church, media, civil society organizations and the chieftaincy institutions”.

GNA