By Rashid Mbugri, GNA
Tamale, Dec. 11, GNA - Mr Lawrence Zineh Dakura, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Land Use and Partial Planning Authority (LUSPA), has advised stakeholders to collaborate with one another to adopt the decentralisation processes of land use and spatial planning system as a tool for development.
He said LUSPA would not be able to achieve its results if stakeholders in the authority were not in the position to handle their land settlement planning activities effectively in their areas of jurisdiction.
Mr Dakura said this in Tamale during a day's workshop held to orientate stakeholders on the Land Use and Spatial Planning Act, 2016 Act 925.
The Act is to revise and consolidate the laws on land use and spatial planning, provide for sustainable development of land and human settlements through a decentralized planning system as well as to regulate national, regional, district and local spatial planning.
The workshop was organized by LUSPA in collaboration with the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) with funding from the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Decentralization.
The workshop was also to help the stakeholders understand the reforms in the Act and build their capacities for effective coordination to carry out the framework of the decentralization policy for the successful implementation of the Act.
Mr Dakura said the Act was carved out as a result of transitions from the Town Act of 1892 (Cap 86), the Town and Country planning Ordinance of 1945 (Cap 84), the Town and Country Planning(Amendment Act) 1963 Act 33 and part II of the Local Government Act, which deals with planning functions.
He said Section 185 of the Act spells out the institutional framework for effective inter-sectorial collaboration between the national, regional, district and local level in accordance with the decentralization approach and processes.
He urged stakeholders to be conversant with the Act to ensure effective collaboration among themselves to ensure that the reforms were effectively implemented.
Mr Richard Kambootah, Deputy Director at ILGS, Tamale Campus, said the workshop was also meant to help enlighten and keep the stakeholders abreast with the change of management from Town and Country Planning Department (T&CPD) to the LUSPA and the Physical Planning Department (PPD), as a transition tool for decentralization.
He urged the stakeholders to cooperate and participate effectively in order to learn and share experiences for the successful implementation of the Act.
Mr Frederick Agyarko Oduro, the Acting Dean of Studies and Research at the ILGS, said the local government Act 963, 2016 and the LUSPA Act, 2016 (Act 925) were laws that would regulate the role of the assemblies to ensure effective coordination.
Mr Abdul Moomen Salia, the Assistant Dean of Studies and Research at the ILGS, in an interview with the media, said the assemblies within the local government structure were the overall developers of their own areas of jurisdiction and decentralization was a reformation process, which ought to be adopted for nation building.
He urged the general public to adopt the decentralization process of reformation to make the economy better and effective.
GNA
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