Bongo District focuses on education

Bongo (UER), Jan. 23, GNA - The Bongo District Assembly, last year spent a total of 355 million cedis to support needy students in school. They included 128 students in senior secondary schools, 90 tertiary students, 192 teacher trainees and 32 nurse trainees from the District.

Mr Francis Akurugu Asampana, District Chief Executive, said this at the 6th Upper East Regional People's Assembly held at Bongo on Tuesday. He said the Assembly identified education as the major priority of the District and focused much attention to supporting needy students who otherwise would have been unable to further their education. It also built new school blocks and renovated old ones in some communities. With the District Assembly Common Fund, he said school blocks were built for six communities while a 1.6 billion cedi GETFUND project to supply furniture to all schools in the area was underway. He said the Assembly also used 57.3 million cedis to support disabled students.

Mr Asampana said enrolment in schools had for the past two years increased by 2,218 due to the Capitation Grant and the School Feeding Programme.

On health, he said the Assembly had constructed three houses for the community Health Planning Services (CHPS) and supplied 20 beds to the Maternity Ward of the Bongo Hospital.

He said 6,436 adults and 10,321 children under 18 years had subscribed for health insurance, while 3,285 aged and 3,176 poor people had also been registered.

Mr Asampana said even though some NGOs had dug many wells and bore holes in the District, more than 35 had been capped due to high fluoride content that made the water unsafe for consumption. He appealed to the government and NGOs to help the District to find a solution to the fluoride problem.

He said the Assembly had a problem of low internal revenue generation, which had limited its ability to undertake most of its activities to the desired level.

During the forum, Naba Johnson Awuni, Chief of Yorogo said land was very scarce in the area and the people needed to be paid compensation if they had to give up their farmlands for government or NGO sponsored projects.

He said even though development projects were for the benefit of the people, families that had to give their lands out were left with no other source of livelihood.