Koforidua An 18-member committee has been inaugurated in Koforidua to plan and execute programmes which would raise the New Juaben municipality to metropolitan status by the year 2005. The committee, under the chairmanship of the Municipal Chief Executive, Mr Emmanuel Adu-Boateng, included representatives from the municipal assembly, the traditional council, the utility services and regional heads of departments. In her inaugural address, Miss Patience Adow, Eastern regional Minister, called for imagination and commitment by members of the committee to their task. She urged the members to mobilise the people and agencies to create the environment that would attract investors to develop the area. Mr David Sarpong Boateng, a Minister of State at the President’s office, who chaired the function, said Koforidua was a well-planned township during the colonial era and regretted that due to laxity on the part of some public officials at the Lands department, planning regulations are being flouted by developers. He asked the committee to be fair and resolute in the discharge of its functions; it should involve the chiefs, youth and identifiable groups in the planning and execution of policies. In a welcoming address, Mr Adu-Boateng, said the municipal assembly has formed an environmental and sanitation task force to check, among others, the rate at which unauthorised structures are springing up in the municipality.
