We don’t need new regions – Amaliba

The creation of new regions by the Akufo-Addo-led government is inessential because that is not what the people of Ghana need at the moment, Abraham Amaliba, a private legal practitioner and member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has said.

According to him, the resources and money that would have been used in creating the new regions should rather be channeled into development projects in the already existing regions.

Both the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) promised to create new regions ahead of last year’s presidential and parliamentary elections; elections the NPP won.

Contributing to a discussion on GH One television on Friday, Mr. Amaliba, whose party also promised to create the new regions, ironically questioned the rationale of the new regions saying: “In my view, this is an unnecessary exercise. The creation will mean that they will have access to portable water, access to education, schools, and hospitals and so I ask can’t we provide these things without necessarily creating new regions?

“The new region will open the Pandora’s Box for every region or ethnic group calling for a region. You don’t want to do that because we want to put everybody together.”

However, also commenting on the same programme, Emmanuel Kyeremateng Agyarko, Member of Parliament for Ayawaso West Wuogon, said the argument of my Amaliba was “bogus” and “porous”.

He believed that the criticisms against the creation of the new regions smack of hypocrisy because the NDC also promised to do same if they won the elections.

He said: “This is a bogus and porous argument Amaliba is putting up. The NDC in 2016 manifesto stated in black and white that they were going to create new regions and so for somebody like Amaliba if someone else is doing it, is bad.

“Go to the people in the regions and find out their sentiments about the creation. Governance is about making the people happy and so we are doing that.”