BURKINA FASO DAMS SPILLAGE WASHES AWAY ROADS AND BRIDGES IN CENTRAL GONJA DISTRICT

BURKINA FASO DAMS SPILLAGE WASHES AWAY ROADS AND BRIDGES IN CENTRAL GONJA DISTRICT

Water Spillage from the Bagre and Kapianga dams in neighboring Burkina Faso and severe floods caused by heavy downpour have washed away access roads and bridges linking satellite communities to Buipe, District capital of the Central Gonja District of the northern region.
The situation has cut off residents of the affected communities including Tuliwe, Aboase and Mpaha from the district capital thereby making life unbearable to them.
Assembly members representing the affected communities are therefore calling on government to rapidly respond to their predicament by giving immediate attention to the reconstruction of the washed away facilities.
Inadequate health facilities and lack of trained teachers refusal to accept postings to the district due to insufficient accommodation facilities are among other constraints affecting citizens of the Central Gonja District.
All these nagging issues came to light at the Second Ordinary General Meeting of the Central Gonja District Assembly held in Buipe on Wednesday 25.
Responding to some of the concerns, Hon. Amadu Seidu, Member of Parliament for Yapei/Kusawgu Constituency assured the assembly members of Ghana and Japanese governments and other development partners commitment to tackle most of the problems particularly that of the deplorable road network that is peculiar to most districts in the northern region.
He regretted that most of the well tailored development projects that begun under Jerry John Rawlings’ watch were abandoned by the erstwhile Kufuor led NPP administration but promised that all those projects will be re-visited by the President J.E.A Mills led NDC government in fulfillment of the Better Ghana Agenda.
He hence urged the assembly members to approach decisions bordering the district’s development on bipartisan lines and intensify their lobbying skills for projects to improve the living conditions of residents of their respective electoral areas.
Hon. Amadu Seidu further said plans have been far advanced by government to get all the deprived communities in the Central Gonja District connected to the national electrification project under the northern rural electrification programme.
On education, he said the GETfund in collaboration with the Ministry of Education is going to put up Kindergartens in almost every community as a means of making quality education accessible to all children of school going age in Ghana.
The District Chief Executive, Hon. Sualisu Biawuribe commended residents of Buipe for their cooperation with security operatives in the area whose operations have maintained the appreciable though relative peace in the area during the wake of skirmishes and other security threats related to the Buipe chieftaincy affair.
According to the DCE, the spate of highway robbery in the district has been considerably reduced with some of the notorious robbers whose activities endangered the lives of residents and other commuters being arrested by the security operatives.
Hon. Biawuribe announced that only one out of the hundreds of candidates in the district who wrote the Basic Education Certificate Examination for the year 2009 had aggregate 10 which he said needed concerted efforts to change the situation.
He added that the construction of mechanized boreholes and dams were underway in some underserved communities in the district to enhance peri-urban agriculture which in his estimation will boost food security in the district and beyond.
Hon. Biawuribe tasked revenue collectors of the assembly to maximize their internal revenue generating funds to complement the common fund allocation needed to execute the assembly’s development agenda to the fullest.
As part of efforts to improve the district’s human resource base, the DCE said a chunk of the assembly common fund and the MP’s allocation went into sponsoring brilliant but needy students of the area at all levels of education with emphasis on tertiary education.

USAID LAUNCHES PAGE PROJECT IN TAMALE

USAID LAUNCHES PAGE PROJECT IN TAMALE

The United States Agency for International Development’s funded education project code named “Partnership for Accountable Governance in Education Project” for the three northern regions has been launched in Tamale.

The three years project which will be implemented in 46 districts across Ghana among other interventions seek to improve student achievement through strengthened educational governance and supervision.

Mr. George Appiah, Deputy Chief of party at the launch explained that the project is designed to support the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service to achieve the policy goals and objectives of the Education Strategic Plan and it will be facilitated by Care International.

For the start, Mr. George Appiah announced that the USAID is making available a package of 241 motorbikes for distribution and each of the beneficiary districts are expected to receive at least five motorbikes each.

He said one of the many guiding principles of the project is to institutionalize accountability for results among stakeholders in education at all levels.

Hon. Sam Nasaamu Asabigi, Deputy Northern Regional commended the USAID for the initiative and concluded that it will improve the standard of education in the three northern regions.

He regretted that the northern regions have over the years recorded low grades at the Basic Education Certificate Examination level and in his estimation the PAGE project could make a difference.
The Partnership for Accountable Governance in Education is a USAID funded programme that started on June 1, 2010 and its activities are expected to support two out of Ghana’s four Education Strategic Plan objectives as laid in the Medium Term Development plan objectives for the education sector.
Participants at the launch included Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives, Regional and District Directors of Education and other stakeholders in education operating in the three regions of the north.