By Iddi Yire, GNA
Accra, Oct 05, GNA – The Ministry of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, has announced the commencement of a new programme where corporate organisations will partner with the State to clean, green, light, and maintain major streets in the major cities across the country.
Mr Mahama Ayariga, the Minister of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, made the disclosure on Monday, when he took his turn at the Government Accountability Series Press Conference held at the Presidency.
He said under the direction of President John Dramani Mahama, they had commenced an exercise to assign all streets in the nation’s major capital cities to private businesses, including banks, manufacturing companies, construction firms, logistics companies and insurance firms.
Mr Ayariga said they assumed responsibility for the reconstruction, redevelopment, and maintenance of those streets, renaming those streets after the companies or sharing the names with existing name personalities, and advertising rights along those streets, motivational considerations that we will infuse into the design of the programme.
Taking the Obasanjo Highway as an example, he said the Access Bank would be given the mandate to redevelop the street, make sure that it was maintained and well lit, and ensure adequate greenery, as well as ensure that the walkways were always paved and safe.
Mr Ayariga said he would have a meeting on Tuesday, October 6 with the Governor of the Central Bank, with all heads of the financial institutions.
He said the Governor himself had expressed readiness to mobilise the banks to actively adopt streets and fix them.
“The initiative will be rolled out in the coming days and weeks. The first report on the initiative is expected from the Chief Executive of the Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority.
Mr Ayariga also announced that President John Dramani Mahama had also directed that he produced a strategy for building adequate inner-city infrastructure, such as adequate roads and drains in every neighbourhood in cities across the country.
He said the President was leading a discussion involving himself (Mr Ayariga), Mr Kwami Governs Agbodza, the Minister for Roads and Highways and Dr Cassiel Ato Baah Forson, the Finance Minister, to develop an inner-city Big Push Initiative to redevelop the nation’s inner cities.
Mr Ayariga said the initiative would be largely funded by a carefully reconfigured property-red regime and betterment charges with government support.
He said that basically what they plan to do, the full details would be announced by the President in due course.
“The objective is to ensure every neighbourhood in our cities has paved routes, paved streets, walkways, adequate drainage, street lighting, and enough greenery,” he said.
“We ask for the cooperation of all property owners when we commence work. The values of your properties will be considerably enhanced by the end of completion of this initiative.”
He said, he knew that several home owners wanted their neighbourhoods to be developed by Regimamuel Gray and Trassaco Estates respectively.
He reiterated that they just needed the leadership of the Government to facilitate that, which was basically what the scheme was going to enable.
GNA
Edited by Christabel Addo
05 Oct. 2026