Binduri Residents Want Assembly Relocated

Concerned citizens of Binduri have expressed dissatisfaction at the disrespect for a court ruling calling for the relocation of the Binduri District Assembly from Bengur.

The concerned citizens said the Binduri District Assembly and its offices were wrongly located at the Bengur community and this is contrary to provision in LI that established the district and spelt out its capital.

The group said 'the LI 2146 specifies in Section 6 clearly and unambiguously that the principal offices of the District Assembly shall be situated in Binduri. It did not say that the principal offices can be situated in any one of the eight communities of the Binduri Electoral Area as some people are trying to imply'.

'Binduri as a community is very different from the Binduri Electoral Area and nowhere in Section 6 of the LI specifies where the principal offices shall be or mentioned an Electoral Area as capital. It says Binduri shall host the principal offices and not any other seven remaining communities that constitute the electoral area,'

At a press conference in Bolgatanga, the organizers described pronouncements by the youth Association of Bengur in a recent press conference as misinforming and added that various utterances and actions following the creation of the district did not augur well.

They condemned the actions of the perpetrators who led the previous administration to locate the Assembly and its offices at Bazua and later to Bengur.

They said the move by the previous regime to create the offices at two different places is leading to financial loss to the state as they are about 23 km away with inaccessible roads.

Mr Philip Ayamba, who read the statement on behalf of the citizens, said the Section 6 of LI 2146 that established the Binduri District clearly specified that the principal offices of the District Assembly be sited at Binduri and not any of the eight of the communities of the Binduri electoral area.

He said the action of the youth of Bengur was misleading to the public as it made people assume that Bengur and Binduri meant the same.

'In our commitment for peace, the people of Binduri returned to court in 2014 with Mr Nii Ayikoi Otto as our Lawyer which resulted in the Attorney General representative stating that it is wrong for the authorities at the time including the Regional Minister, Mark Woyongo and the District Chief Executive, Daniel Kolbilla to refuse to move the district to Binduri', he said.

Mr Ayamba urged the Ministry of local government and Rural Development and the Regional Coordinating Council to remain focused in providing the offices at the designated place.

'The people of Binduri are willing to make more land available to all decentralized agencies that are ready to establish their offices in Binduri,' they said.

They expressed gratitude to the Ghana Police Service who since the creation of the district sited their outpost in Binduri and appealed to the security agencies to deal ruthlessly with anybody whose actions could cause bloodshed in the district.

Last week a group calling itself Youth Association of Binduri threatened chaos if the District capital was moved from Bengur following the visit of the Regional Minister, Mr Rockson Bukari to Naaba Robert Akolbilla Ajetwin to announce the construction of a new District Assembly Block at Binduri.

GNA
By Fatima Anafu- Astanga, GNA