Agriculture is of high priority - DCE

Mr Mohammed Aminu Luku Manu, East Gonja District Chief Executive (DCE) said agriculture was a high priority of the district, and this would be pursued vigorously to ensure the fight against hunger, disease and poverty was successful.

He said, in this regard, a total of Ghc200,000 has been allocated by the East Gonja District Assembly to upscale agriculture to help create jobs for the youth and farmers to improve the living standards of people.

The funds, he said, would be used to purchase farming equipment including tractors, ploughs, harrows and agro inputs to support farmers to produce quality crops and increase yield.

Mr Manu, who disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency in Salaga on Friday, said five valleys in the district, including Makango, Kafaba and Kataya had been re-developed and would be allocated to farmers.

“After the allocation to farmers, the assembly will cultivate rice on the remaining lands to generate income to support developmental activities in the district,” he said.

The DCE said rice harvesting remained a challenge in the area due to its labour intensive nature and called on development partners to support the district with harvesting equipment, especially combine harvesters, to encourage farmers to produce more rice.

Mr Manu gave the assurance that works on upgrading some major roads in the district, especially the Makango-Salaga and Salaga-Bimbila roads, would soon commence.

He said work on the Tamale-Salaga road had stalled due to funding challenges and that the assembly would soon start working on the 18 miles road to facilitate movement, especially during harvesting.

Mr Manu said the Canadian International Development Agency and the World Bank had earmarked Ghc143,000 to improve sanitation with an additional Ghc1.2 million to address the water challenge in the district.

He expressed the hope that the perennial water challenge facing the district would soon be addressed and appealed to the people to embrace the community led sanitation approach to improve sanitation.

“We have established two sanitation markets where various different types of latrines had been showcased for people to select from. When a person chooses a particular style there is a team readily available to build the latrine in one week,” he said.