The Paramount Chief of Bongo, Naba Baba Salifu Atamale Lemyaruum, has entreated President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to consider making a municipality of the Bongo District.
The district, according to the traditional ruler, who doubles as the Vice President of the Upper East Regional House of Chiefs, has got the requirements to be elevated to a municipal grade.
He was speaking Thursday when President Akufo-Addo graced a durbar in Bongo as part his 2-day working tour of the Upper East region.
“Your Excellency, Bongo has a population of a little over 100,000 people with high potentials in the manufacturing sector such as clay and dimension stones. I am, therefore, appealing to you to upgrade our district to a municipal status to completely propel the district for development,” the chief said, describing the beautiful-looking, rock-strewn local government area as “a peaceful, humble Rock City”.
Bongo Hospital needs Ambulance
Whilst calling government’s attention to some roads he said were in deplorable state in the district, the chief also told the President what people generally referred to Bongo District Hospital had both children and women sharing one ward and that it lacked both a mortuary facility and an ambulance service.
He said the area needed a modern district hospital to serve as a referral centre to the six sub-district clinics and the thirty-six Community-based Health Planning Services (CHPS) compounds in the district. The chief also advocated for government to absorb four community senior high schools— the Namoo Senior High School, the Beo Senior High School, the Soe Senior High School and the Balungo Technical School— and to provide the Bongo Senior High School with a girls’ dormitory block and an administration building.
“Your Excellency, I cannot conclude without making a request for the completion of the Regional Hospital which serves as a referral [centre] to all district hospitals. Lack of doctors is another challenge facing the hospital,” he added as he also lauded the implementation of some government policies he said had improved the living conditions of his people.
He cited “Planting for Food and Jobs, Limited Recruitment of Teachers, the Youth Employment Programme, the Nation Builders Corps [and] the Tree Planting Exercise and Adaptation Fund Project” among such policies.
Bongo to get 10 Dams in 2018
President Akufo-Addo, who was scribbling down on paper as the chief listed the district’s challenges and requests, mounted the podium to unwrap a relief package for the district after the chief had finished.
His voice was submerged in the deafening cheers that greeted his speech as he gave the district a number of reasons to look forward to nothing but a more prosperous future starting even before 2018 is over.
“We have begun the One-Village-One-Dam initiative and you here in Bongo can see for yourselves that we have begun the initiative. It is our intention that Bongo alone will get 10 dams this year. Five hundred and seventy dams are being built [in northern Ghana] and Bongo Constituency alone will get 10 out of that 570.
“The Planting for Food and Jobs [has made available] improved seeds, subsidised fertilisers and provided extension officers to over 200, 000 farmers. Of that amount, 30,000 benefited from the Upper East region and Bongo had 5,000 of the 30,000 who benefited from the programme,” President Akufo-Addo stated.
He further announced: “This year, it’s our intention to increase the number of farmers under the programme from 200,000 to 500,000. If we are able to complete the dam, for the first time in the history of our country, we are going to have all-year-round farming in the three northern regions of our country.”
Wrapping up his address, he also assured the chief his requests would be met after his tour of the district.
“These are all matters we are working on and I am very confident that very soon you will see a result of this visit of mine to Bongo,” affirmed the President who wraps up his tour today (Friday) with a visit to Navrongo and Sandema.
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM/Edward Adeti
