Mr John Ansu Kumi, the Sunyani Municipal Chief Executive, and other stakeholders have visited the construction site of an urban development park in the municipality to assess the progress of work. It is under the implementation of the Phase Three of the Secondary City Support Project in the Sunyani Municipality. Under the Third Phase, Sunyani is benefiting from a three-acre landfill reclamation urban park development, a 500-metre long storm drain, and a 1.4-kilometre access road. The implementation of the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA) credit project, which started in 2019, and spans a five-year period, is part of the Government's broader urban development and decentralisation programme. It would help to strengthen local systems and provide the necessary support to the municipal assemblies for effective urban management and service delivery. To facilitate the project implementation, an age-old heap of refuse dump at the Sunyani Area Two had been evacuated, preventing criminal a ctivities and drug peddling, which were hitherto common there. However, the contractors said they were unhappy with the attitude of some residents, who had turned the project site into a place of convenience, slowing down work. They said that had been the major challenge confronting the project as the area had been messed up, frustrating their efforts to speed up the execution of work. They appealed to the Sunyani city authorities to help end the practice to facilitate work at the site. Nonetheless, they promised to deliver quality work, complete and hand over in August 2024, as scheduled. Excavation works, including clearing and construction of a huge steel bridge were ongoing on the 1.4-kilometre access road linking Petra Hotel and Sunyani Estate to the Sunyani Jubilee Park area when the team visited. Mr Kumi inspired the contractors, despite the challenges, to speed up work and gave the assurance that the Municipal Assembly would introduce stringent measures to control the open defecation at the area . He called on the residents to desist from the practice, saying: 'You are going to benefit most, and we must all come together and flush out the miscreants whose behaviour is frustrating the contractors and slowing down the execution of the work'. ?Meanwhile, some of the residents, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, appealed to the Municipal Assembly to construct additional public toilets for the area as the only male and female toilets were insufficient. They said many of the compound houses had no toilets, hence the occupants depended on the few public ones when the need arose, which contributed to the practice. Source: Ghana News Agency