Dr. Maurice Jonas Woode, the District Chief Executive (DCE) for Akrofuom says the Assembly is putting in place pragmatic measures to leverage the mining potential in the district to rake in more revenue.
He said the Assembly had consequently taken steps to safeguard the operations of large and small-scale mining firms in the district to accelerate the development agenda of the Assembly.
The DCE who was speaking to the media after a general assembly meeting, said the quest to protect legal mining activities in the district was an attempt by the Assembly to speed up economic growth.
He said though the Assembly was on course to achieve its revenue target for the year, it was important to explore other sources in their revenue mobilisation drive.
‘Our budget for the year was GHC 1,221,650.00 but at the end of the first quarter we had GHC 329,138.07 representing 26.94%. This means we are on course to meet our target, but we are working to get more revenue from other sources including mining,’ the DCE revealed.
Meanwhile, Dr. Woode has pledged his support for Asante Gold Corporation which is set to start underground mining at the Kubi Gold Project in the Akrofuom District with the expectation that their operations would bring in more revenue.
The DCE, however, pointed out that the Assembly would not neglect other sectors, especially agriculture which had been the mainstay of the local economy over the years.
He said as part of efforts to promote agriculture, the Akrofuom District Assembly had instituted bylaws to deal with farmers who traded their lands for illegal mining activities.
This, according to the DCE, was to guard against the Dutch Disease syndrome – also known as ‘resource curse’ which affected the economy of The Netherlands following the discovery of natural gas reserves in 1959.
He further disclosed that the Assembly had collaborated with the Ghana Productive Safety Net Project (GPSNP) to grow more trees to reclaim already degraded lands affected by mining as part of strategies to boost farming acti
vities in the area.
Source: Ghana News Agency