The Lawra district Assembly has met to draft a composite budget at Lawra in the Upper West region.

It was attended by a cross section of the public, including women's groups, Persons with Disabilities, non-governmental organisations and some Assembly Members.

The drafting of the composite budget for the assemblies seeks to solicit the inputs of stakeholders on the developmental agenda for the 2015 fiscal year.

It also seeks to harmonise the developmental aspirations of the various departments within the assemblies and allied groups as contained in 2015-2017 medium term development plan.

It is a critical step geared towards eliminating the duplication of projects and programmes in the district with its attendant waste of resources.

The Lawra District Chief Executive, Paschal Baylon Dere in his welcome address emphasized that the assembly is committed to functional development-projects well funded and executed.

Mr. Paschal appealed to development partners especially NGOs to look at the projects and programmes the Assembly intends to implement and possibly complement their efforts to make the projects fully functional.

He said the assembly would have loved to execute all projects but because of resource constraints it would only prioritize some of the projects

.‘‘Let us however be wary that we can only implement these activities depending on the quantum and timing of the revenue inflows, hence the need for us to put our shoulders to the wheel to mobilise the needed revenue locally to accelerate our developmental process.

"This means we must pay our basic rates and stop evading payment of market and property levies,’’ he stressed.

Mr. Paschal also used the occasion to reawaken community self-help initiatives especially communal labour.

‘‘Most often, the cumulative cost of maintaining existing physical projects could have been used in constructing new ones or invested in other areas to promote human development.

If we want to sustainably develop as a district then we must embrace the culture of community maintenance of public projects.

The district chief executive and the assembly’s budget analyst, Anthony Kumih later took the participants through the draft composite budget.

The assembly’s revenue projections for 2015 is pegged at nine million, eight hundred and forty nine thousand, five hundred and three Ghana Cedis ninety four pesewas (9,849,503.94).