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Minister of the Central Region, Justina Marigold Assan
Ms. Justina Marigold Assan, Central Regional Minister, has asked all Departments and Decentralized Agencies of the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDA) to fully merge the government’s special development initiatives into their plans and programs.
Departments and Agencies should not work in isolation, but have a strong interest in ensuring that government policies and programs are implemented for the betterment of all citizens, regardless of their political affiliation or ethnicity, for sustainable development.
He also announced plans to establish a Regional Committee to fully implement a Regional Development Plan, which would become a model to guide all allied state institutions, Departments, Agencies and MMDA to spearhead development in the region.
Ms. Assan spoke at her inaugural meeting with the region’s decentralized department heads which provided the minister with the opportunity to sell her vision and also officially introduce herself to the region’s department and agency heads to enlist their support.
“Departments cannot work in isolation. We need to work together seeing ourselves as agents of development to spearhead President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s vision of development and prosperity for all.”
He refuted the notion that the implementation of important policies such as free education, Plantation for Food and Jobs (FSY), One District, One Factory (1D1F), among others, were the exclusive domain of some specialized institutions.
He urged MMDAs to make judicious use of resources to improve the well-being of their people and added that; “We need to change the narrative of poverty by working hard to turn the region’s economic resources into productive enterprises to drive growth and development.”
Describing her vision for the region, Ms Assan identified the deterioration of basic education, untapped tourism potentials, sanitation, environmental degradation and unemployment as the main challenges.
In that regard, he reaffirmed his determination to ensure that things got better for the better and called for concerted efforts by all stakeholders to remedy the situation.
“It is unacceptable that despite the presence of many first-class postgraduate institutions and other opportunities, they have not been fully exploited to provide opportunities for the many unemployed youth to improve their lives,” he said and pledged to change that narrative. .
Ms. Assan also mentioned the roads as a critical area that would receive special attention, to open the region to development, as many of the roads to remote communities are in a deplorable state.
Mr. Kingsley Agyei Boahen, the Director of Regional Coordination congratulated the Minister on her new portfolio and rallied everyone’s support to enable her to be successful.
