President Akufo-Addo has commissioned the newly constructed administration block of the North East Regional Coordinating Council at Nalerigu last week Saturday, as part of his working visit to the newly created region.
The administration block is among six new administrative structures being constructed for the six newly created Regions, and the second to be completed for use, after commissioning that of the Western North in September 2021.
The administration complex was constructed at a cost of seventeen million, six hundred and forty-seven thousand, five hundred and forty-three cedis, and seventeen pesewas (GH¢17,647,543.17).
It will house all the departments of the North East Regional Co-ordinating Council and other Institutions to ensure effective and efficient administration of the Region.
Speaking at the ceremony, President Akufo-Addo stated that the creation of the new regions “will bring government closer to the people and also accelerate the process of social and economic progress in the various regions.”
He noted, however, that “we can’t build the regions without creating the institutions that will make regional development a success and those are what we have begun to do with this building.”
President Akufo-Addo continued, “The Minister for Local Government, Rural Development and Decentralisation, Dan Botwe, was the very Minister who saw to the regional reconstruction and that is why he has now been given the added responsibility of making sure that the decentralization exercise, the devolution that we have seen in the administration of our state, becomes firm and on the ground.”
Touching on other key projects in the North East region since its creation, he noted that “eleven (11) road projects have been completed in the North East region in my time and sixty-one (61) are ongoing.
“Reference has already been made to the work that has been done on the town roads in Nalerigu and Gambaga and in Walewale, bridges that are being built in the area and the developments in the various important road connections that there are in this region.”
Concluding, the President said “But in all of these, there is one also important source of joy and that is the elevation we have made for one of the daughters of the Nayiri; Member of Parliament for Walewa, Lariba Zuwera Abudu, who has now become the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection. She is a hardworking woman and I have no doubt that she’s going to justify the confidence that I’ve got in her”.
Meanwhile President Akufo-Addo has assured the nation that the assistance government is seeking from the International Monetary Fund will not affect flagship pro-poor policies being implemented by Government.
According to President Akufo-Addo, the ongoing pro-poor policies are at the heart of Government since 2017, and remain non-negotiable items of the country’s public expenditure, and, as such, will not be affected by Ghana’s re-engagement with the IMF.
Describing it as a relatively easy assurance to give, the President referred to the statement by the IMF Country Director who indicated that an initiative like the Free SHS programme cannot be sacrificed on the altar of a programme with the IMF.
“So, all our minds are going in the same direction and I’m very, very confident that these programmes, especially the Free SHS, Free TVET programme will emerge from the programme with the Fund intact,” he added.
President Akufo-Addo made this known on Friday, 5th August, 2022 during an interview on UAR Radio in Bolgatanga, at the start of his working visit to the Upper East Region.
“I think there is something that a lot of people are forgetting. When we came into office, we were into an IMF programme in 2017. In fact before we exited the IMF, Free SHS was introduced in the September of my first term in office, a whole nine months of my coming under an IMF Programme. So, it is already been accommodated within the thinking of the Fund programme for Ghana.”
He added that “It (Free SHS) is not as if it is something that we had to wait to exit the programme before we brought it. We brought it at the time we were and under an IMF Programme and I will find it very illogical for us to have a programme we started under an IMF programme and because we are going to have a new one sacrifice it. That doesn’t make sense, and it will not happen.”
On how to ensure that Ghana does not go back seeking for assistance from the IMF, he noted that the structural transformation of the Ghanaian economy from its current dependence on the production and export of raw materials to one of value addition and industrialisation is the way to go.
“That is why we’ve had this emphasis on industrial transformation coming out of the 1D1F Programme and other targeted industrial transformation measures that we’ve taken in the automotive industry in enhancing the value addition our strategic mineral resources like our bauxite, iron ore, etc.
“Those are the real keys to a future robust Ghanaian economy – that we will have an economy that is self-sufficient in the sense that the basic needs of the people are produced by Ghanaian production”, he said
President Akufo-Addo continued, “So it is important that we, in Ghana, we keep our eyes on two factors. To continue the process of structural transformation of our economy that will give us more independence, more robust and a more resilient Ghanaian economy, and, at the same time, make provisions for these exogenous interferences that every now and then are just bound to happen”, he recommended.
He reiterated that “the measures that we are taking now to build the strength of our economy, will make it more and more difficult for us to have that dependency and need for reliance in future.”
