250bn for the Northern Development Fund is significant

Wa, Nov. 28, GNA - A New Patriotic Party (NPP) activist has said one of the most important achievements of the government for the three northern regions is the provision of 250 billion cedis as seed capital for the Northern Development Fund. Mr. Dabre Tanko, President of the Tertiary Education Students Confederation (TESCOM) of the Wa Campus of the University for Development Studies, said some people in the opposition have refused to acknowledge the effort as an achievement but were saying the mount was inadequate.

He said this during the inauguration of the level 100 students into TESCOM in Wa on Saturday.

He thanked the government for the seed money and called on Ghanaians to contribute generously to it to develop the north. Mr. Tanko said TESCOM had slightly influenced the voting pattern in favour of the NPP in the last elections from 15.2 per cent in 2000 to 37 percent in 2004 and winning a parliamentary seat for the party. Despite these significant achievements, the only recognition given to it has been "observer status" and urged executives of the NPP to give it national recognition since it represented the views of a greater number of the youth in school.

Mr. Tanko said: "We must be given voting rights. We have never been happy when we are left out in strategizing winning ways for the party in elections. We want to be recruited to monitor polling stations during the elections".

Mr. George Hikah Benson, Upper West Regional Minister, acknowledged that the efforts of TESCOM had been positive in the past elections. He said there was therefore the need to design an election plan for its members in the 2008 polls to help win more seats for the party. Mr. Benson said the National Democratic Congress was desperate to win power back and appealed to NPP supporters not to be complacent but to work harder to maintain power to develop the country. Mr. Hafiz Bin Salih, Upper West Regional Youth Organiser, asked the students not limit the activities of the party on campus but to go all out into the communities to propagate the good policies and programmes of the government.

Some of the students reminded the aspirants to be decent with their campaign language because the opposition parties were waiting to use such utterance as their campaign tools to destroy the party.