President of NGO calls for a new regional capital at Kintampo

Accra, Aug 31, GNA - Mr Prince Bagnaba Mba, the President of Forum for Equity, a non-governmental organization, on Tuesday suggested to the government to carve another region out of the Brong-Ahafo Region and make Kintampo its capital.

He said Kintampo, located at the centre of the country, would link the north and south and would facilitate Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) project.

Mr Mba told the GNA in an interview that Kintampo could also absorb some of the people who drift from the northern sector to the southern parts of the country for non-existent jobs.

He said the SADA project should be devoid of political partisanship and ethnic considerations because this could spell the doom of the project.

Mr Mba appealed to the government to avoid luxury and expensive vehicles and numerous workshops and talk shows that crippled the defunct Northern Regional Rural Integration Project (NORRIP), Volta Regional Development Project (VORADEP) and Upper Regional Development Project (URADEP) in the past.

He said if the SADA project would succeed to bridge the development gasp between the north and the south, the government would have to site in the north industries that could attract professionals from all over the country and beyond.

Mr Mba said the government could establish factories that could process shea nut, rice, cashew, groundnut, beans and livestock and this would absorb a lot of the unemployed youth.

"We shall not succeed in our quest for development and equal distribution of the national cake if a chunk of the money will, as usual, be spent on luxurious and expensive vehicles for only the management staff of the project."

He said the Brong-Ahafo Region had vast fertile and arable land and the creation of a regional capital in Kintampo could even attract unemployed youth from the Ashanti, Western and Volta regions to reduce the pressure on Accra and Kumasi.

Mr Mba said the oneness with which all members of Parliament voted in favour of the SADA bill was an admission that there was inequity between the north and the south and called on all politicians to see it as a national assignment and not as a sectionalist programme as its success would have rippling effect on all aspects of the economy.

He appealed to all northern intellectuals to commit themselves to the project by accepting postings to the area in order to attract other people to the area.