Government urged to fulfill its promise on SADA
Mr. Ambrose Dery, the Member of Parliament for Lawra/Nandom, has said the hopes of people from the three northern regions about the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) promised them by the government were diminishing.
He said the government promised to lodge 250 million dollars as seed capital to start with the SADA but ended up with only 25 million dollars in 2009.
Mr. Dery, who was addressing a durbar of chiefs and people of the Nandom Traditional at the “Kakube” Festival at Nandom on Sunday, said the government also promised to top it up with 100 million dollars from budgetary allocations each year and to beef it up with donor support but all these had not been fulfilled.
Mr. Dery said the people of the area were now in disillusionment and would want the government to come out clearly to tell them what it was doing about SADA to help rekindle their hopes and aspirations.
He said the people were disappointed and doubted the success of SADA because the 2011 budget was too silent on it.
He said the people would want to know from the government whether the 25 million dollars it said had been allocated to SADA, had been fulfilled and if so how the said amount had been utilised.
Mr Dery said while poverty level in the country stood at 18 percent, that of the Upper West, Upper East and Northern regions stood at 62 per cent and appealed to the government to roll out new development programmes to improve the livelihoods of the people.
He said in the wake of under-development, deprivation and disease that had plagued the people of the north, the government was more interested in sourcing about 1.5 billion for housing projects alone to the neglect of SADA.
On peace, Mr. Dery said he was happy that the Nandom Traditional Area was enjoying peace and advised them not to take the prevailing peace in the area for granted but work to sustain it.
He said the north had become notorious for wars and conflicts and attributed some of the confusions in the areas to political interfere which should be avoided to bring peace to the people.
“Politics is a content of ideas and not fight”, Mr. Dery said, adding: ” any politician who wants to incite the youth to fight should first lead the war front or be prepared to ask his son or daughter to lead in the fight”.
Source: GNA