Upper East Region has no functioning Regional Minister

The Upper East Region is without a resident Regional Minister for two months now and this has made residents to raise eyebrows as to whether the government is serious about the development of the Region.

The Region has four Regional Ministers in less than 20 months.

Mr James Tiiga, one of Ghana’s representatives at the United Nations, was appointed the new Minister for the Region and took over from Dr Ephraim Avea Nsoh in July but left for the UN mission to hand over and has not returned.

The Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Limuna Mohammed-Muniru, has assumed responsibility for the region even though he has the biggest region in the country to manage. Most of the residents the GNA spoke to were of the view that the Region was not being fairly treated.

Mr Francis Adengo, the Upper East Youth Association Organizer, said the Region was one of the poorest in the country and needed a stable political leadership to galvanize support and dialogue with the citizenry to fashion out a roadmap for the its development which the Regional Minister must be present to coordinate.

“Being absent means there is no coordinated activities to address the Region’s development challenges and we the Upper East Region are the losers at the end of the day”, Mr Adengo said.

Mrs Margaret Akolgo, a leader of the Bolgatanga Market Women Association, said Northern Region that has 28 districts was too big for Alhaji Mohammed-Muniru to handle and therefore could not effectively handle the Upper East Region in addition to his huge responsibilities.

Mr Mathias Aboba, a Development Practitioner, attributed shoddy contract works and uncompleted government projects awarded on contract to the absence of a functioning Regional Minister to supervise the projects to ensure timely execution and quality work.

“The absence of a Substantive Regional Minister therefore means that anything goes when it comes to the Upper East Region”, he said.

Mr Aboba said while good initiatives such as the Regional Strategic Development Plan started by Dr Nsoh, the former Regional Minister was working accordingly and making impact in the Upper West Region, the plan for the Upper East Region had been abandoned.