Community members tasked to partner assemblies

The Bongo District Assembly has held a stakeholders' forum with traditional rulers to discuss the progress of development in the area.

The forum which brought together the Paramount Chief of the Bongo Traditional area, Naba Baba Salifu Aleemyarum, his sub chiefs and Queen mothers, as well as assembly members, opinion leaders, departmental heads to brainstorm on issues pertaining to security, water, hygiene and sanitation, the low internally generated funds of the Assembly, the problem associated with releasing land for development projects, teenage pregnancy and education.

The Presiding Member of the Assembly, Mr Luke A Atazona, who is also a Presidential Staffer and Research Economist at the Presidency, told the traditional rulers that Government recognized them as major stakeholders of development hence the forum.

The District Chief Executive (DCE) for the area, Mr Alexis Ayamdor, said one challenge the Assembly faced was the refusal of some community members to release land for development projects and appealed to the Chiefs to work towards addressing the menace.

“The District will not witness much development if community members are always demanding compensation even at the least of citing smaller projects on a little piece of land.

“You as custodians of the land and the people need to work to address this problem to pave way for more government development projects,” he told the traditional rulers.

The DCE also mentioned the problem of security, particularly the snatching of motorbikes and the spate of teenage pregnancies in the area and appealed to the traditional rulers to partner with the Assembly to find a workable solution to the problem.He said the assembly had constructed police stations at Zorko, Bongo Soe and Naamo to ensure security for there.

He entreated the Traditional rulers to educate their people on the need to honour their tax obligation and said the Assembly through the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFUND) and the District Assembly Common Fund had built many schools and CHPS compounds to help improve upon education and health in the area.

The District Police Commander, Assistant Superintendent of Police, Paul Archibald Ankan, assured the people that the police had declared war on criminals and warned them to desist from their behaviour.

He appealed to the District Assembly for more motorbikes to help deal with the criminals and impressed upon the traditional rulers to refer cases such as murder, theft, rape and defilement to the police who are mandated to deal with such criminal issues.

He urged community members to volunteer information to the police to help reduce crime in the area.

“Security they say is yours. The major raw material of the police is information. We should not allow some few miscreants to destabilize the peace process. Let us allow the institutions to work and when they work we will all have peace”, the Police Commander said.

The Paramount Chief of the area who lauded the Assembly for the recognition given them as major stakeholders in development, gave the assurance that the traditional Council would rally behind the Assembly to help accelerate the development of the area.