Government committed to ensuring equal development

Damongo, Oct.10, GNA - President John Agyekum Kufuor on Saturday said the government was committed to ensuring equal distribution of resources and development project to benefit the people without discrimination. He said, "Our focus is to fairly distribute resources and development project in manner that will integrated the people"

President Kufuor urged chiefs and the youth to work toward peace, saying, " The country can only develop when there is peace and unity. The President raised these concerns in a speech read on his behalf at the sixth National Congress of the Chiefs and people from the 28 Guan speaking communities in Ghana at Damongo in the West Gonja District of the Northern Region on Saturday.

The Congress is aimed at strengthening a common cultural identity and to foster unity among Guans towards the socio-economic advancement of the people.

President Kufuor referred Ghanaians to the incidents in the neighbouring West African States and advised them to maintain peace, especially in this electioneering year.

He said the NPP government had laid a solid economic, social and infrastructure foundation to enhance the smooth take-off of development in the country and therefore called on Ghanaians to work together to sustain these achievements.

Mr. Ernest Debrah, Northern Regional Minister expressed concern about the over interference of the youth in the selections and appointments of government officials and sometimes in the creation and sitting of district capitals.

He said such actions must be controlled because they created chaos in the communities and disintegrated the people.

On the Fufulso/Damongo/Sawla road construction, Mr Debrah announced that the government was soughing funding from the international community to complete work on the road.

Alhaji Abu-Jajah, President of the Guan Congress said the Guans had in their own unique way, attributes of bravery, hard work, honesty, respect for law and order, peace, patriotism and discipline bestowed on them by other ethnic groups.

He said these attributes were however eluding the Guans as a result of infiltration of foreign cultures and called for a relentless war against the adulteration of the Guan culture.

Alhaji Abu-Jajah urged Guans sough innovations that could be used to reverse any part of Guan culture that were obsolete and retrogressive to human development but "those cultural practices that promote social integration and development must be maintained."

Mr Kwame Ampene, General Secretary of the Guan congress, said the Congress was non-political and non-profit making organization; and aimed at fostering unity, enhancing development and protecting the Guan culture.