Dutch ambassador's advise to northern ministers

Wa, August 17, GNA – Mr. Gerard Duijejes, the Netherlands Ambassador to Ghana, has appealed to the Regional Ministers of the Northern, Upper East and Upper West to be more active in the search for development partners to help improve on the living conditions of the people.

He said the three Regions were considered to be the poorest in the country and more efforts must therefore be put in place to develop these regions to catch up with the rest.

Ambassador Duijejes made the appeal when he paid a courtesy call on the Upper West Regional Minister, Alhaji Issahaku Saliah at his office in Wa on Tuesday.

He said development partners usually would not go about knocking at people’s doors to offer support but would rather wait for them to come and ask for the type of support they needed.

He therefore urged the Regional Ministers to identify their problems, package them well and go all out to look for support from these development partners.

Ambassador Duijejes told Alhaji Saliah that he was in the region to acquaint himself with issues relating to health, water and sanitation and food security.

He was also in the region to get first hand information on the implementation of the Wa Water Supply Scheme being funded by his government at the cost of 15 million Euros.

Alhaji Saliah thanked the Ambassador for the visit and expressed appreciation for the water project.

He said the region and for that matter the country had benefited a lot from the Netherlands Government and other donor partners and would continue to be grateful for that support.

Alhaji Saliah agreed with the Ambassador that more was still needed to be done to bring in more development partners to partner government to develop the North.

He assured him that he and his colleagues would not rest on their oars to execute that noble agenda.

He said since NDC government took over, the development of the North had remained a topmost priority and that the government demonstrated that by instituting the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) and other interventions targeted at reducing the poverty among the people.

The Minister said currently, the major challenges facing the region were women empowerment and how to open up food production areas.