As part of its contingency plans to curtail the constant reoccurrence of annual floods that have adversely affected lives and properties in some parts of the north, the West Gonja District Assembly has set aside a whopping forty thousand Ghana cedis (GH¢ 40,000) from its supplementary budget to support the District National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) to start preparations ahead of this year’s flooding.
The money is expected to be used to procure relief items like food stuffs, mattresses, mosquito nets, robber buckets, second hand clothing and first aid medicines/vaccines, while a chunk of the amount will also cater for the intensification of public awareness creation on the need for settlers along the river banks and flood prone areas to relocate to high grounds.
The District Chief Executive (DCE) for West Gonja District, Adam Mutawakilu disclosed this in an interview with the Accra-based Citi Fm earlier this week.
The DCE regretted that victims of last year’s floods were recounting their losses and pleaded with the people still living in low land areas to relocate for their own safety. He was thankful to the Department of Social Welfare for supporting majority of the victims through the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty Programme (LEAP) and also commended other Non Governmental Organizations including World Vision and Action-Aid Ghana for their continuous support towards improving the living conditions of the victims and other impoverished persons in the underserved communities.
It will be recalled that last year, several lives were lost during the floods with several hundreds of houses submerged in Daboya, Yagbon and Attributo communities in the West Gonja District.
On the other hand, the DCE said the government’s Better Ghana Agenda was on course in the West Gonja District where several projects had been executed and were ready for
commissioning.
He disclosed that about 36 school projects comprising 3 and 6 unit classroom blocks with ancillary facilities had been built by the President John Evans Atta Mills led NDC administration within the last two years.
Some of the beneficiary communities he indicated included Damongo the district capital, Minpeasem, Kurabasu, Mognori, Chidorpe, Sinsina, Chinfrono, Anyantu and Mankarigu among others.
He disclosed further that similar projects were underway to fulfilling government’s
pledge of eliminating all schools under trees in the entire West Gonja district.
According to the DCE, previously, about 50% of the beneficiary communities did not have school buildings which he noted contributed to the falling standard of education in the area.
Hon. Adam Mutawakilu added that the assembly under the Northern Rural Poverty Reduction Programme (NORPREP) had built two teacher bungalows each at Minpeasem and
Naabori communities meant to provide decent accommodation for teachers in the communities.
He added that two more teacher bungalows have been built at the Damongo Health
Assistants Training School and the Falahiya Primary Schools with funding
from the District Wide Assistance Project (DWAP).
According to Hon. Adam Mutawakilu, the assembly received 32 sewing machines from
the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) Headquarters in Accra for onward distribution to participants who successfully underwent the sewing and design module.
In the area of agriculture, the assembly according to the DCE had constructed an Irrigation Dam at Grupe at the cost of GH¢121,000 to promote all year round farming. As part of government’s block farming project, the West Gonja District assembly he noted had also cultivated 50 acres of maize and rice plantations which provided jobs for about 937 of the unemployed youth in the district.
Hon. Adam Mutawakilu however complained about poor road network linking Damongo, the district capital to the various parts of the district but was quick to reveal that the Northern Rural Growth Programme (NRGP) was constructing a 34.7 kilometre road in the district valued at 1.5 million Ghana cedis.
In another development, government is building a health centre at Larabanga in the West Gonja District at the cost of GH 150,000 cedis in line with government’s plans to make quality healthcare delivery accessible to the people, especially the rural poor irrespective of their geographical locations.
With funding from the District Assembly and the MP’s common funds, the assembly has finished building the Out Patients Department block and provided a fence wall to prevent encroachment on the health centre’s land. Hon. Adam Mutawakilu, District Chief Executive for the West Gonja District was confident that the Larabanga health centre would be upgraded into a Polyclinic by 2012.
He said the African Development Bank had concluded plans to build maternity, female and male wards and an X-ray Department for the health centre at the cost of GH 500,000 cedis in order to reduce
infant and maternal mortalities and other related cases which have usually been referred to the Damongo District Hospital.
Hon. Adam Mutawakilu also said the assembly was also constructing an ultra modern market
for the Larabanga community at the cost of GH¢220,000.
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