Empower SADA To Overcome Poverty

That the three northern regions are rated as the poorest and least developed among the 10 regions of Ghana is not a matter of controversy or debate.

This unpalatable state of affairs in those areas is not on account of the paucity or total lack of viable and potent natural and human resources in the area, nor due to the laziness and lack of innovation on the part of the people.

The area has an array of mineral wealth, including gold, iron ore and other strategic minerals, and is acknowledged as the country’s granary. It also exemplifies hard work, dedication and selflessness of the people to the nation.

While many reasons can be advanced to justify the existence of that state of affairs in the area, the twin evils of the slave trade and colonialism account for a substantial part.

Large numbers of able-bodied men and women who constitute the most vital resource of any society were, during that era, captured and sold as slaves to be shipped to Europe and the Americas to create wealth for those societies.

That, and the instability so created, deprived the three northern regions of the requisite resources for development.

Again, during the British colonial era, the north, for a variety of reasons, including religious and cultural, was, as a matter of deliberate policy, carved out and misused by the colonial regime as a reservoir of cheap labour to service the mines, cocoa plantations and railways in the southern part of the country.

Thus education was kept way from the people for the purpose of keeping them unskilled for unskilled labour.

Indeed, long before Apartheid was instituted as a state policy in South Africa, a semblance of it operated in the Northern Territory of the Gold Coast where northerners seeking to travel to the south were expected to carry passes or permits authorising them to enter the south.

It was from such a background of wanton neglect and deliberate impoverishment that the government of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), led by the nation’s founder, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, rolled out a policy of affirmative action, including a free educational system for the people of the north to help bridge the wide gulf between the two areas of the country.

We are happy that many years after that progressive policy implemented by the Nkrumah government, the northern part of the country and some parts of the Brong Ahafo and Volta regions which still suffer this huge development gap are the beneficiaries of another progressive initiative under the aegis of the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) launched by the government of President John Evans Atta Mills.

It is heart-warming that the government, as part of its steadfast commitment to combat poverty and under-development in the north and some parts of the Brong Ahafo and Volta regions, has, in addition to the significant funds and human resource it has offered SADA, further directed that $25 million be released by the Finance Ministry to accelerate the implementation of the programme of SADA.

This assistance, as well as more lined up for SADA, should, among others, help fast-track the socio-economic development of the area, create more jobs, wealth and sustainable livelihood for the people and ensure that viable ventures exist there to attract the youth to stay and develop the area, instead of continuing to migrate to the south as kayayei (Porters), as has happened for many years.

The initiative to support farmers not only to be self-sufficient but also expand and earn more wealth is a most welcome intervention, as agriculture is the mainstay of the area.

These interventions should not only erase any lingering doubts in the minds of SADA sceptics about the government’s policy but also galvanise the people of the area to jettison unproductive conflicts and join hands to tap to the maximum these laudable initiatives to move their lives and the area forward.

No one but the people of the area can develop it and they must not let this historic and opportune moment to slip.