Upper East: Tempane District Inaugurated

The newly-created Tempane District in the Upper East Region has been inaugurated with a call on the people to change their attitude towards development and sanitation.

Tempane is among some 38 new districts inaugurated on Thursday, March 15 in the country.

Tempane was carved out of the Garu-Tempane District in line with the Local Government Act, which mandates government to take governance to the doorsteps of the citizens.

In 2012, the Tempane Constituency was created from the Garu-Tempane Constituency.

A large number of residents in the district are farmers and traders.

Bawku Naba, Zug-Ran Asigri Abugragu Azoka II, in a speech read on his behalf, commended President Nana Akufo-Addo for fulfilling his promise to the people and called on the people to also ensure that they live and work hard to develop themselves and their communities to justify the creation of the Tempane District.

He said he was happy to have witnessed the creation of another administrative area under the Bawku Traditional Area, bringing the number to six.

He called for peaceful co-existence among people of the various ethnic groups in the new district so as to attract the needed development from central government, as well as Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) operating in the new district.

“I want to call on the traditional leaders in this district to always resolve land disputes quickly and release lands for development purposes. We all know that land disputes are among the major factors that hamper development and that is why we should discourage land disputes for the sake of development.”

The Member of Parliament (MP) and Deputy Minister of Justice, Joseph Dindiok Kpemka, called on the people of the area to be vigilant and always report criminals to the Police.

He paid glowing tribute to Ghana’s Ambassador to the Vatican, H.E Joseph Akolibila and others who started the struggle to create the Tempane District.

The Deputy Minister called on the four divisional chiefs in the district to quickly form alliance and start lobbying for developmental projects.

“Our enemies are deprivation, illiteracy and poverty; these are the enemies of mankind and we must work together to fight them…from today, let us work together and support the District Assembly’s leadership to develop our new district,” Mr Kpemka said.

He called on the Assembly members to eschew partisanship and work hard to meet the needs of the electorate.

The Upper East Regional Minister, Rockson Bukari, who officially inaugurated the Tempane District Assembly, appealed to the staff of the new district assembly to be punctual and innovative.

The Regional Minister noted that Assemblies must play a crucial role in achieving the President’s Ghana Beyond Aid' vision.

He further appealed to chiefs and people of the Upper East Region to readily release land for development, saying, “Our region and communities will be losing projects if we continue to make land acquisition too difficult and problematic.”

The Tempane District will generate a chunk of its Internally Generated Funds (IGF) from the Warinyanga Market and others that hitherto contributed to the IGF of the then Garu-Tempane District.