WA, Jan.15, GNA - The European Union has allocated 1,324,552 Ghana cedis for the implementation of various rural development projects in the Upper West Region within the next eighteen months, under the second phase of its sixth Micro-Projects Programme.
Additionally, it has introduced an income generating component under which it has earmarked 233,255 Ghana cedis to support youth and women's groups to go into agro- processing and other economic ventures such as corn milling, shea butter extraction, rice milling, cashew processing and construction of congenial working places for small scale businesses.
Mr. Kwabena Dankyi Darfoor, Programme Manager of EU-Micro projects said this at the launch of the second phase of the sixth Micro Projects and income generating projects in the region at Wa on Tuesday. Under the first phase, the region benefited from a total of 1, 220,359 Ghana cedis for the execution of 59 projects made up of three classroom blocks, CHIPs compound facilities, culverts, Vault chamber Toilet facilities boreholes, Nurses' and Teachers' quarters. Mr. Darfoor said the second phase of the sixth micro-projects programme has three components that were made up of capacity building of district Assemblies and communities, provision of infrastructure projects and income-generating activities.
This time, he said no approval would be given for the construction of boreholes since that has been catered for in another programme. He advised the beneficiary Municipal and District Assemblies against including boreholes in their list of selected projects. The Programme Manager said they would not hasten to withdraw support for any District Assembly, which went against the guidelines or sanction any staff whose actions contravened the guidelines. Mr George Hikah Benson, Upper West Regional Minister said the EU Micro Project Programme has made significant impact on the lives of many Ghanaians through the implementation of 3,743 micro projects through out the country at a total cost of 50 million Euros.
He called on Municipal and District Assemblies in the region to position themselves well so as to ensure the smooth implementation of all development projects.
"The Regional Coordinating Council would not hesitate to issue the first sanction to any Municipal and District Assembly on lapses detected in the said implementation even before the EU issues out its own sanctions", he warned.
