THE Obuasi Municipality has become the latest municipality in the country to fully implement government’s plan of street naming and house numbering project dubbed “the Geographic Urban Service Infrastructure Initiative of Ghana”.
This feat, therefore brings Obuasi closer to becoming part of the Global Positioning System (GPS) that with the touch of a button, by using Google maps, would give the exact location of sites, places and towns within the Obuasi Municipality.
In commissioning the first phase of the project over the weekend at Obuasi in the Ashanti Region, Vice-President John Dramani Mahama commended the Municipal Chief Executive, the Chiefs and people of Obuasi for implementing the project covering theCentral Business District.
He described their success as a “practical manifestation of the fact that, with determination we can, as a country, achieve a high rate of success in our national endeavours if we put our shoulders to the wheel.”
Mr. Mahama explained that while at a conference in Ethiopia, he sought assistance from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa to enable government undertake a street naming and house numbering project.
This resulted into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development and the Economic Commission for Africa was subsequently signed to support the project.
“The MOU seeks for the development of geospatial database through processing, geo-referencing, three dimensional features recognition, extraction and exploitation of a Geo-stereo multispectral image over the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area-GAMA”, the Vice-president indicated.
He stressed that “It has always been my desire to see all major towns and cities zip coded and linked up the Global Positioning System (GPS). As you are aware, the world is developing fast technologically and Ghana cannot remain behind in being part of the global changing trends in technological advancement in this era of globalization.”
To ensure that the Street naming and House Numbering project became part of the national development strategy, Mr. Mahama stated that the MLGRD has developed a National Policy Manual on the project for approval by Cabinet.
“I believe that such a manual will set the guidelines for all districts to adopt in the modernization of our towns and cities in order to ease the identification and location of places and properties across the length and breadth of the country,” Vice-President Mahama assured.
He reminded Ghanaians of the importance of the project, especially in the delivery of mails and parcels in the era of expedited courier mail and packages delivery services and an aid to the travelling public, taxi and ‘trotro’ drivers and visitors to find directions to their destinations with ease.
“Additionally, the system, by providing easy identification, will enable the Assembly to easily identify properties for purposes of collecting the appropriate property rates and basic rates, fees and fines and other forms of taxes, thereby raking in more revenue into its coffers for local development,” Mr. Mahama stressed.
He again reminded the people of the difficulties the police and other security agencies go through when they have to respond to distress calls.
“In most cases, victims of fire outbreak or robbery, for instance, are unable to give the appropriate state agencies precise direction to the exact location of these incidents,” adding that “consequently, they arrive too late at the scenes of these unfortunate occurrences,” Mr. Mahama lamented.
The Vice-President called for the strengthening of collaboration and partnership between government, the private sector, bi-lateral and multi-lateral agencies as well as Civil Society Organisations in order to effectively address the challenges facing the implementation of the Street Address System in order to succeed in the revenue mobilization component of the project.
Addressing the deplorable infrastructural and road network in the municipality, Mr. Mahama assured the Chiefs and people of Obuasi of government’s plan to upgrade all the major road networks to enhance traveling and carting of goods and services.
He particularly mentioned the railway lines and said in the shortest possible time Obuasi would rediscover those periods when rail transportation was in vogue.
Present at the function was Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, Deputy Minister for MLGRD, the Municipal Chief Executive Alexander Ackon, The Kumasi Municipal Chief Executive Samuel Sarpong and other DCEs.
Story: Wisdom Peter Awuku
15/1/11
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