The chief saysthe initiative will bring healthcare delivery to the doorstep of the citizenry.
The paramount chief of the Paga Traditional Area in the Kassena-Nankana West District of the Upper East Region, Pe Awiah Awumpaga II has lauded the government for its Agenda 111 project.
He said that the initiative will bring healthcare delivery to the doorstep of the citizenry, which has been one of the major challenges faced by the nation.
The chief was particularly happy that his traditional area is a beneficiary of the innovative initiative, underscoring its significance in saving lives and improving the health needs of residents in the area.
The Paga Pio Pe Awiah Awumpaga II with Dr Mahamudu Bawumia
He was speaking during a courtesy call on him by Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia.
“I wish to commend the Akufo-Addo government for its vision of bringing healthcare to the doorstep of the citizenry with Agenda 111,” Awumpaga II said.
“There would not have been a better place to site this project than my area. I am convinced that upon completion, my subjects and I will benefit from it. It would also save us the struggle of travelling to Navrongo and Bolga for certain services once they would be available here for us,” he added.
Dr Mahamudu Bawumia inspecting one of the Agenda 111 sites in the Upper East Region
The Agenda 111 project includes 101 district hospitals, six regional hospitals in the newly created regions, two specialized hospitals in the middle and northern belts, as well as a regional hospital in the Western Region and renovation of the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital.
The objective of the project is to significantly deepen the delivery of quality healthcare at the district level, and boost access to healthcare services for all citizens towards ensuring the attainment of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal Three.
Some fish farmersand institutions in the Upper East Region are sustainably increasing fish production and contributing to the national fish stock for food and nutritional security.
The government, under its Aquaculture for Food and Jobs programme, has empowered some youth groups and institutions in the region including the Navrongo Central Prison and the Navrongo Youth Farmers Brigade in the Kassena-Nankana Municipality to venture into pond and cage fish farming.
Apart from providing them with technical knowledge and expertise, the government, through the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture, also supported them with fish feed, fingerlings and holding facilities.
This aimed to sustainably increase fish production in the region, created employment and helped reduce poverty among the youth and contributed to the country’s drive to achieve food and nutritional security.
Mr Francis Adjei, the Upper East Regional Director of Fisheries Commission, who said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Bolgatanga noted that catfish and tilapia were being cultivated.
At the Navrongo Central Prison, under the pond fish farming, two cages were provided with 24,000 fingerlings and 274 bags of fish feed were supplied and they recorded two harvests and restocked the cages with new fingerlings.
“They have harvested two times and were yet to harvest the third time, although the first-time stocking was high, that is, 12,000 per cage which resulted in mortalities, the harvest was over 600 kilogrammes while the second harvest was 1,460 kilogrammes.
Mr Adjei noted that the Navrongo Youth Farmers Brigade, were also supported with 11,000 tilapia fingerlings and 274 bags of fish feed were supplied to them, which provided jobs to them and increased their income levels.
Apart from that, the Commission had also restocked the capture fisheries including the dams and other water bodies in the region and collaborated with stakeholders including the Irrigation Company of Upper Region, Ghana Police Service, chiefs, and farmers to ensure safety.
The Regional Director explained that the Directorate had a demonstration fishpond for providing technical and practical training on fish farming to students and youth and the move had motivated about 20 people to venture into backyard fishing farming.
“Over 50,000 catfish have been stocked in these backyard fish farming which is tank and tarpaulin fish farming and some people have harvested already, with the first one having about 500 kilogrammes and the second one 250 kilogrammes,” he added.
Mr Adjei explained that the excessive cost of fingerlings and fish feed had been identified as two critical challenges confronting fish production in the region and the government was working to address them to encourage more youth into the sector through the setting up of hatcheries in the Northern enclave.
He said currently the government was renovating the fish hatcheries at Gowrie, near the Vea Dam in the Bongo District, adding “when that is finished, we will be able to supply over one million fingerlings annually to fish farmers in the Northern enclave.
“Because currently the farmers travel down south to purchase the fingerlings and by the time, they get here about 70 to 80 per cent are dead and so before the hatchery is ready for use the Commission uses its vehicle to transport the fingerlings from the South to the farmers which have reduced the mortality rate to about two per cent,”.
Mr Adjei encouraged the youth to venture into backyard fish farming and noted that the Commission had been able to identify a private entrepreneur who had established a fish feed production company in Bolgatanga and would soon begin to supply feed to the Northern sector.
Naba Roland Atogumdeya Akwara III, the Paramount Chief of the Sirigu Traditional area in the Kassena-Nankana West District of the Upper East Region, says the unresolved land dispute between Doba and Kandiga is retarding development in the area.
He said huge sums of money, which could have been used to undertake development projects to improve the livelihoods of the people had been spent on the security of the area and it was worrying.
He said they were all one family since they inter-married and therefore appealed to the feuding factions including the chiefs and people of Doba and Kandiga to embrace peace, to ensure sustainable development.
The Paramount Chief said this at the annual walk of Sirigu which brought together a lot of community members and the nearby communities including Doba and Kandiga.
The conflict was because of ownership of a piece of land on which a police post and Community-based Health Planning Services compound were to be constructed.
Naba Akwara III said anytime he drew the attention of the District Assembly to the development needs of the people, he was always told that all the resources had been spent on the Doba-Kandiga conflict.
He said many of the bridges in the area particularly Kandiga -Sirigu Bridge, Sirigu-Zorko Bridge, Paga-Sirigu Bridge, and the Bolgatanga-Sirigu Bridge had all collapsed cutting off most of the communities.
He appealed to the factions to consider the development of the area and to see themselves as one people and use dialogue instead of violence to resolve their differences.
He told the factions to be mindful that future generations would not be content with them if they continued to engage in such acts that drew the development of the areas backwards.
On the Health Walk, the Paramount Chief indicated that Health Walk was started four years ago, aimed at ensuring that the people were physically fit to support development initiatives.
He said the Sustainable Medical Missions (SMM), an international medical training and empowering organisation based in the United States had been supporting the annual exercise and admonished Ghanaians to always exercise to keep fit.
Naba Akwara said apart from the annual health walk, the NGO partnered with the traditional council to end open defecation through sensitization and the construction of toilet facilities.
Mr Thomas Lerewanu, the representative of the NGO explained that the mission of SMM over the years had been to train and support indigenous healthcare and faith-based leaders in underdeveloped communities to treat Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) and other endemic conditions affecting the poorest community members.
He mentioned various tropical diseases including Trachoma, Onchocerciasis, Leprosy, Trypanosomiasis, Dracunculiasis, Buruli Ulcer, Hookworm, Schistosomiasis, Lymphatic Filariasis, Ascariasis, Trichuriasis and Leishmaniasis; as some of the Tropic Diseases SMM targets through its initiatives.
He said his outfit often started with the reading of the Gospel through showing documentaries before sensitising the community members on how to curb Intestinal, standards form of handwashing and de-worming.
He stressed that God was emphatic about the healthcare of the people as stated in many portions of the Bible and therefore called on the community members to take loving care of their personal hygiene.
The occasion which attracted other stakeholders including Non-Government Organisations, teachers and students from the Sirigu Senior High School, NGOs, Assembly Members, and opinion leaders, was also used for a clean-up exercise and football matches.
Three persons are reported dead and at least 10 houses burnt at Kandiga and Doba communities, in the Kassena-Nankana West District and Kassena-Nankana Municipality of the Upper East Region, following renewed clashes over land.
The police Kassena-Nankana Municipal Police Command had so far arrested 11suspects, and retrieved one pump action gun, three single barrel guns and twelve live carriages, from them.
The Kassena-Nankana Municipal Police Commander, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Francis Oppong Agyare, confirmed the story to the Ghanaian Times, here on Monday.
He said when the police received a distress call on Saturday dawn that some houses were in flames in the conflict communities, they alerted the Ghana National Fire Service.
DSP Agyare said normalcy had returned to the area, and people were going about their activities peacefully.
He said the Municipal Security Council (MUSEC) imposed curfew in the conflict areas since June, this year following land dispute.
DSP Agyare said “the MUSEC has been managing the situation until Sunday when a 23-year-old man was murdered on his way to his farm. The man is from Kandiga, but allied to the Doba Chief, so he was killed by people, believed to have come from Kandiga, which triggered the clash again. It subsequently turned into a conflict between some members of the Kandiga community, those who they think aligned themselves to the Doba Chief, were targetedâ€.
It would be recalled that in June this year, six people were reported killed and 12 houses torched after some residents from the Doba and Kantiga clashed over land intended for a police station project.
The police arrested 10persons in connection with the June violence, some guns and cartridges retrieved from suspects and they were put before court.
The Navrongo Municipal Police Command in the Upper East Region has arrested six suspects for allegedly transporting ammunition into troubled Kandiga community in the Kassana-Nankana West District.
The six include a mate and a driver of a VIP bus with registration number AC-2051-19 and four residents of Kandiga who were recipients of the ammunition.
Speaking to Citi News, Navrongo Municipal Police Commander, DSP Francis Agyare said, the suspects who were arrested upon a tip-off are in police custody and will soon be arraigned before the Navrongo district court.
“Following recent clashes between the people of Doba and Kandiga and subsequently the number of empty cartridges we retrieved from the conflict zone gave us cause to believe that, the conflict was being financed by people outside the communities so this suspicion compelled us to start searching all passenger buses plying the Bolga-Navrongo routeâ€.
“On Tuesday, at 5:00 am, police on duty at the conflict zone intercepted a bus and when it was searched, we had 1,256 cartridges and quantities of bow and arrows and the driver alleged that they were given him to be given to somebody at Kandiga. So we arrested him and he cooperated.â€
“So, we lured the receivers to come for their parcel and as they arrived there we arrested them. So we arrested the four receivers of the parcel together with the driver and his mate in police custody. We are processing them and when we finish investigations, we will arraign them before court.â€
Meanwhile, the Navrongo District court, presided over by His Worship Abdul-Malik Wahab on Tuesday, July 7, sentenced 12 out of 20 suspects arrested in connection with Saturday, July 4, 2020, renewed clash to between 5-8 months imprisonment, for possession of unlawful firearms and rioting.
The 12 suspects are to serve their sentences at the Gambaga prison in the North East Region
However, calm has returned to the conflict Kassena-Nankana area as heavy military-police personnel have been dispatched to the area to ensure law and order.
Some residents and business owners in the troubled area have appealed to government to urgently intervene by identifying the root cause of the clashes and bring lasting peace to the area.
They say the situation was taking a dire toll on their livelihoods.
Owners of most business enterprises have locked up their shops for fear of being attacked.
