The Bolgatanga Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) Rex Asanga has revealed some of the projects the Assembly is going to execute with the SOCO fund. Mr. Asanga who expresses thankful to the government says, the SOCO project is going to benefit 48 districts in 5 northern regions and Oti region. “So, this year our Municipality is going to receive a little more than (Ghc 4 million) Four Million Ghana Cedis”. He hinted The Gulf of Guinea Northern Regions Social Cohesion (SOCO) Project was launched in November 2022, by Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia Ghana’s Vice President in the Upper East Regional Capital Bolgatanga. The project is expected to reach over 4,600 border-zone communities across the northern Gulf of Guinea sub-region and in Ghana, specifically 48 Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in six regions in the north will be direct beneficiaries of the SOCO project. Meanwhile, engaging the Bolgatanga Municipal Chief Executive Mr. Rex Asanga to find Assembly plans ahead of his share of SOCO project fund, he said “We intend to spend this money on a number of projects. The Dorongo Dam used to be a place where vegetable production for the entire Dorongo Community was very lucrative and over the years the Dam has silted up, it has slited up entire vegetable cultivation is getting out. So we have decided that we are going to spend part of the money on the first phase to rehabilitate this dam within Dorongo”. He said, the Assembly has decided that they are going to sink a number of boreholes in selected communities to make water available for dry season irrigation farming. According to him, once they tried that and is successful they are going to go all out as a municipality to provide mechanized borehole to all the communities where irrigation farming is taking place. “We are going to spend quite an amount of it in the provision of a mechanized borehole. If you go around the municipality, you would realize that dry season gardening has become one of the main economic activities and in fact next to basket waving. That is really employing a lot of youth. So, if you go to a place where the dry season is taking place, you don’t find the youth there traveling out. Many young people in the municipality are no longer leaving to the south in the dry season, they just need a pumping machine and water source. So, they don’t need to travel to Accra –Kumasi to look for none existing jobs. So as Assembly, we have decided that we are going to kind of try to provide a number of Mechanize boreholes to selected communities because one of the major problems they are facing is water. Sometimes, they start the season very well, pumping the water from the stream or from a dam, and then, during a certain stage of growth of the crop, then the water dried up. So, we decided that we are going to sink a number of the borehole in selected communities to make water available for dry season irrigation farming and once we tried this and is successful we are going to go all out as a municipality to provide mechanized borehole to all the communities where irrigation farming is taking place”. He stressed In Education, Mr. Asanga said, the Assembly is going to build more classroom blocks and rehabilitate others, especially at the JSS level. “We have some JSS, the condition of their infrastructure especially the classroom, is not very good”. He revealed In the area of decongestion, the MCE said they tried last year using our own resources and the Common Fund to open up some of the roads in the municipality and a lot of people are happy with what the Assembly did. “With this enhanced facility that is coming to help us in addition to other facilities we are going to open a lot more roads” He insisted “We have also decided to spend some of the money under this SOCO project to open up more roads. Everybody is complaining that apart from the main street, you can drive around but when you want to enter any suburb, then you find out there is no road. The plans are there, the roads are there except that they have not been opened up”. Source: Apexnewsgh.com/GhanaFor publication please kindly contact us on 0256336062 or Email apexnewsgh@gmail.com