Bongo District Assembly endorses DCE

Bongo (UE), June 16, GNA - The Bongo District Assembly in the Upper East Region, on Thursday voted to confirm the President's nominee, Mr Francis Asampana as the District Chief Executive (DCE) in the area. Out of the 53-member House, 49, were present, 48 of whom voted in favour of Mr Asampana.

Earlier, 41 of them had voted for Mr Donatus Akamogare as the Presiding Member of the Assembly.

The Bongo Assembly had for the past eight months been without a Presiding Member since the tenure of office of the previous PM came to an end and it was necessary to have a Presiding Member to preside over the House for the process of confirming the President's choice of DCE. In his acceptance speech, Mr Asampana who was a former member of the Assembly appealed to all members to forge for unity, saying, "if we wish to remain focused with singleness of purpose to work towards promoting the socio-economic development of the Bongo District, the earlier we eradicated partisan and blind party loyalty from our deliberations in the Assembly, the better."

He said the Assembly would continue to collaborate with their development partners, mostly Non-Governmental Organisations, to enhance education, health, agriculture and small-scale businesses in the area.

Mr Asampana said the situation whereby workers had to travel from Bolgatanga to Bongo everyday to work was not the best and the Assembly would also see to provide accommodation for civil and public servants so they could live and work in the District.

"I will serve the people to the best of my ability to ensure that I bring to fruition their expectations of a better standard of living, quality education, health care, food security and a peaceful and secure environment where all law-abiding citizens of the District can do business without problems," he said.

The Presiding Member, Mr Akamogre, said he would do his best and asked members to co-operate with him so they would all work for the interest of the District.

Both newly elected PM and DCE thanked the members of the Assembly for the trust reposed in them and said they would remain neutral and focused only on one goal, the development of the area.

Mr Boniface Gambilla, Upper East Regional Minister, asked all to focus on fighting poverty and not waste their energy on destructive politics.

He encouraged the people to take seriously health education on various diseases, especially HIV/AIDS and also patronise the National Health Insurance Scheme.

Officials of the Electoral Commission conducted the elections.