Help President Mahama achieve vision – Otumfuo

The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has admonished Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) in the Ashanti Region to double their performance next year, to help the President achieve his vision of working to better the lives of the people.

He said although Ghanaians elected the President based on the promises he made to the people, he alone could not do anything better without the involvement of MMDCEs.

At a ceremony on Monday at the Manhyia Palace where the Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr Eric Opoku, led MMDCEs in the region to wish the Ashanti King a Merry Christmas and seek his blessings for the coming year, Otumfuo said as direct representatives of the President in the local areas, MMDCES could not afford to play to the gallery in discharging their duties.

He said since the leader of the nation could not be at every single place at a particular time, it behoves his appointees to step in to do what was right for the people.

In that connection, the Asantehene stressed the need for the various assemblies in the region to seek ways of raising revenues to complement what they received from the central government.

That was one sure way of initiating development projects and programmes to better the lot of the people, he said.

Caution

Otumfuo Osei Tutu told the chief executives to remember that the people were watching them.

For this reason, he said they had to be careful about the way they managed the resources of their respective areas, so that the expected development would go to the people.

He said if MMDCEs did their work well there was no way their regional minister would make bad recommendations about them to the President.

The Asantehene said all chieftaincy disputes in the region would be addressed to ensure the needed peace for development.

He also advised chiefs against the indiscriminate selling of land, which he said, most often, deprived the assemblies of land for development projects.

He assured the chief executives of his continuous support in the coming years.

The regional minister thanked Otumfuo for the great support he had given him and the chief executives in their work this year.

On behalf of the MMDCEs, Mr Opoku presented assorted drinks, food items, a sheep and an undisclosed amount of money to the Asantehene and the Asantehemaa, Nana Afia Kobi Serwaa Ampem.

Present was the Deputy Regional Minister, Mr Samuel Yaw Adusei.

Source: Daily Graphic