Minister expresses disappointment at NDC youth

Tamale, April 8, GNA - Mr. San Nasamu Asabigi, Deputy Northern Regional Minister has expressed disappointment at a session of the youth of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for their constant castigation of the government, which he observed undermines performance. He said since he took office as minister there was no day he did not hear complains about acts likely to undermine peace and security from the youth.

Mr. Asabigi made the remarks in Tamale on Wednesday during a two-day retreat programme, organised by the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) and the German Development Service (DED), which aimed at taking stock of the performance of the two organisations and how to improve on it. He said political opponents of the NDC had taken advantage of the unruly behaviour of the youth to mock at the government. Mr. Asabigi tasked the youth to channel their energies towards productive ventures such as the re-packaging of the National Youth Employment Programme and the Savannah Agriculture Development Authority. He said the ILGS had over the years contributed significantly to the decentralisation process by educating civil society groups and local government practitioners on the policy.

Mr. Asabigi said it would be suicidal for any poverty-focused nation to downplay the three core issues of education and training, research and consultancy and information mobilisation and dissemination. Dr. Callistus Mahama, Deputy Director of the ILGS said the institute's centre in Tamale was facing perennial infrastructural problems and had therefore started a 300 classroom- block project, while seeking financial assistance to expand its frontiers.

He said the institute would introduce four masters' degree programmes, relating to local government by December this year. Ms Annette Turmann, DED Co-ordinator on Decentralisation said the organisation would always work closely with the people at the community level to facilitate development. She said the German Development Services had since 2004, collaborated with the ILGS in Accra and Tamale in areas of research, education and capacity building, decentralisation and local governance and local economic development.

Mr. Richard Kambootah, Head of Programmes at ILGS said the development of local development-related literature, organisation of client-focused short courses and sponsorships of staff are future areas for consideration.