The Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) President, Dela Gadzanku has suggested an approach that Metropolitan, Municipal, and Districts assemblies can adopt to considerably reduce the dependency on the central government.

According to him, there are enough resources from which districts assemblies can generate revenue to facilitate development.

Mr Gadzanku who was contributing to the topic, “National Tourism and Development Agenda: The Volta Factor” on JoyNews’ The Probe recommended that assemblies, particularly the metropolitan jurisdiction capitalise on tourism to generate such income.

“If we come and we promote local industralisation and local development you do not need to rely on Internally Generated Funds. I have constantly said that metropolitan areas like Accra Tamale and Kumasi and the rest should not be relying on Common Fund because the resources around them are vast.

“So why do we have to rely on central government when you have abundant resources around you,” he told Emefa Apawu on Sunday.

Mr Gadzanku also encouraged MMDCEs to actively engage industries that are within their jurisdiction to establish relationships.

“It doesn’t take much for a DCE to move from his office to visit the industries around to find out how they are doing. There are some industries here in the Volta region that have had no visit from the local assembly, so we try to encourage the local assemblies to [visit industries].”

He was, however, optimistic that the confirmation of new MMDCEs, and the introduction of government’s Local Economic Development Programme, will bring some changes in the industrialization agenda and raise more revenue for the local governments.