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02.12.2011 General News

Upper East Region holds Meet-the-Press in Bolga

By GNA
Upper East Region holds Meet-the-Press in Bolga
02.12.2011 LISTEN

Bolgatanga, Dec. 2, GNA – Mr John Tia Akologu, the Minister for Information, on Thursday said Ghana could not afford to backslide on its hard won reputation on democracy and good governance.

He said in view of this, it had put in place plans and programmes to ensure that the citizenry got their full share of the national cake through even distribution of wealth, respect for human rights and transparent governance.

He said the government considered the welfare of the citizenry paramount because its performance is measured by how good the citizens perceived their welfare and how freely they could access their fundamental rights.

The Information Minister, who is the Member of Parliament for Talensi, said this at a regional Meet the Press series organized by his Ministry, called on the media not to relent in allotting time to discuss pertinent government policies and issues intended to bring development and improvement in the lives of the people.

Mr Mark Woyongo, the Upper East Regional Minister, said the government attached importance to roads as good facilitator in development, hence the region had benefited from several projects since the government came to power.

He mentioned some of the projects as construction of six steel bridges valued at GH¢ 4,039.130.60 whilst about 580.93 km roads were reshaped at the cost GH¢ 1,869.756.34.

Mr woyongo said GH¢ 10,152.707.82 went into spot improvement and minor rehabilitation works on a 191.03 km road and surfacing of a 44.0km of the cocoa roads valued at about GH¢ 7,7487.

He said 14.5km highway road projects had been awarded for upgrading at the cost of GH3,066.467 whilst a bitumen surfacing of a 75km of roads at GH¢3,238.925.95.

He said sealing and resealing of the Bolgatanga town roads and eastern corridor and arterial roads had been completed.

The Regional Minister gave the assurance that the Bolgatanga/Bawku road through to Pusiga Junction, the Bolgatanga/Bongo road , the Winkongo/Tongo, Sandema/Wiesi roads had been prioritized for 2012.

On education, he said the region suffered deficits in the areas of infrastructure aggravated by rainstorm in most schools and that the government had embarked on the provision of more education infrastructure to improve the situation.

He said over 180 schools under trees had been replaced with classroom blocks and rural and urban area schools that hitherto run the shift system have been removed.

Mr Woyongo said 2,150,000 free exercise books, 33,353 free school uniforms, increase in the capitation grant and provision of 150 lap tops to 10n basic schools were evidences of the commitment of government to improve the educational sector.

Touching on security he said even though the region had suffered some instability especially in Bawku thereby affecting development of the Municipality and its immediate environ, calm had returned and people were briskly engaged in their businesses.

He said through the collaborative efforts of the Bawku Inter-Ethnic Peace Committee, calm and peace had returned to the area resulting in the lifting of the curfew and said the ban on males riding motorbikes in the municipality was still in force.

GNA

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