Accra, Nov. 16, GNA - The Northern Patriots in Research and Advocacy (NORPRA) on Friday commended the government for coming up of a policy in the 2008 budget to address regional inequalities.
"The setting up of Northern Development Fund (NDF) to bridge the gap between the south and the north divide is good news to the people of northern extraction," a statement signed by Mr. Bismark Adongo Ayorogo, President of NORPRA said.
The Organisation said the government at last had heeded the recommendation of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) and other groups and individuals for such a policy.
The APRM had said, "progress in the attainment of a considerable number of the goals set out in the Growth and Poverty Reduction (GPRS) and in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is distorted by wide urban-rural and general disparities in the distribution of socio-economic development in the country with the three northern regions and some parts of the coastal Ghana lagging far behind the rest of the country. Therefore the political will should be marshalled to address the regional marginalization."
NORPRA also noted that a report by Phebih-Agyekum and Charles Kwame had warned that, "the greatest danger Ghana faces as a nation in the nearest future is a civil war. It is looming if the policy makers and decision centres of this nation do not make haste to avert it. And the only way to avoid this ominous calamity is to do whatever it takes now and in the future to correct the glaring social and economic imbalances between the north half of the country and the south half".
The statement also quoted other research findings on inequalities and chronic poverty in the northern parts of the country. NORPRA was, however, not happy about how the government handled the disaster victims in the three northern regions and prayed that NDF would not be a propaganda as it was with the GPRS 1 between 2002 and 2006. It expressed the hope that government would rather show commitment and give true meaning to NDF by implementing it timely to bridge the yawning south-north development gap.
