Zongo Chiefs pledge support for Zongo Ministry

The National Council of Zongo Chiefs, an association of Zongo Chiefs across the country has pledged their unflinching support for the development agenda of the Ministry of Inner City and Zongo Development (MICZD) to uplift the image of Zongos across the country.

The National Council of the Zongo Chiefs pledged their support for the Ministry when they interacted with the Minister, Alhaji Abubakar Saddique Boniface at ceremony to hear the vision and mandate of the new Ministry in Accra.

The Zongo Chiefs were drawn from the Ashanti, Northern, Volta, Upper East, Upper West, Brong Ahafo and the Greater Accra Regions to spend the day with the Minister to chart a course for the newly established Ministry.

The ceremony to interact with the Minister who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Madina Constituency in the Greater Accra Region was chaired by Abdul Kadir Tahir, the President of the National Council of Zongo Chiefs.

In a welcome address; the First Vice Chairman of the Council, Alhaji Nana Fanyinama, who is also the Wangara chief urged the Ministry of Inner City and Zongo Development to carry out its mandate in accordance with the laws of the land.

He said the leadership of the National Council of Zongo Chiefs is ever ready to cooperate with the Minister and his Ministry to achieve its dreams and aspirations for the people of Zongo across the country.

The Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the National Council of Zongo Chiefs, Alhaji Baba Issa, on his part called on the leadership of the council to be thankful to the president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his government for the establishment of the Ministry to address the problems confronting the Zongo communities across the country.

According to him, since independence no government in the history of the country has established a Ministry to take care of the needs of the over six hundred Zongo communities in the country.

He said the decision to establish the Ministry was taken because the plight of the community which has been neglected since independence.

He commended the action taken by the president to have a whole Ministry established to address the needs of the people of the Zongo communities.

‘’We pledged our unflinching support for the Minister and the Ministry because if the Minister fails the leadership of the council has also failed.’’

He reminded the Minister to work assiduously to improve upon the educational facilities in the Zongo areas of the country since the basic education results coming from these areas are nothing to write home about across the country.

He related that Nima and Maamobi areas in the Accra metropolis make up one of the biggest populations in the country but these areas cannot boast of a single senior secondary school facility.

He urged the Minister to also take particular look at the economic activity of livestock keeping in the Zongo communities and finds ways to improve upon it.

He even though the Zongo communities are well noted for keeping lives tocks, the processes for doing so are not the best thereby leading to the spread of some communicable diseases in the Zongo areas.

The Minister on his part took the opportunity to thank the leadership of the council for the support they shown him when he was appointed as the as the first head of the Ministry.

He said the president in his wisdom felt that it was important for the establishment of a Ministry with the mandate to deal with the myriad of problems that has bedeviled the Zongo communities over the years.

According to him, the Ministry has been mandated to take charge of the sanitation, promotion of culture, security, education and women empowerment needs of the Zongo communities across the country.

He said the Ministry was purposely set up to include the excluded into the development of the country.

He admitted that Ministry’s mandate to transform the lives of the people in the Zongo communities is not a rhetoric hence the need to engage the chiefs to achieve the agenda of the Ministry.

He added that chiefs and leaders of the Zongo communities are the eyes and the ears of the Ministry in the Zongo communities across the country so there is the need to solicit their views in fashioning out the legal framework for the Ministry.