Chief of Balungu a community in the traditional area in the Upper East Region Naba John Attia (Wmaribilsonga Niitinga/Putisonne maaletinga) says the underdevelopment bedeviling the people of the Region is a self-inflected one by the people themselves.
Naba Attia made the interesting revelation on Saturday, July 9, 2022, when the Apexnewsgh.com crew visited his palace to digest issues of development relating to his traditional area and the region at large.
However, sharing his views on the nature of underdevelopment bedeviling the region over the years, the chief did not miss words. He said: “I don’t blame anybody, I blame ourselves. Now, look at Bolga, look at Bawku, and look at Doba and Kandiga. It is our own people, our educated people, our MPs, our brothers who are directors and so on, they have let Upper East down”.
Naba John also holds the view that those operating Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the region have done the region more bad than good, especially with the huge resources they are receiving from their outside donors. An area he challenges the media to research and come out with the revelations. He insisted that those handling the donor’s dollars in the region are not Ashanti’s or the people from Ga but insisting they are from the region.
“NGOs dollars, all those monies are handled by our own brothers and sisters here. Go and see, what are they using the money for? We have money more than Upper West when it comes to NGOs. NGOs started coming here when Upper West didn’t have NGOs. If you want to do research and look at the number of dollars that have entered Upper East here, those monies were not handled by Ashanti’s, we always say Ashanti’s are cheating us, they were not handled by Ga’s, they were handled by our own people here”. Naba John insisted
Over a period, Apexnewsgh.com as a developmental-oriented online platform interested in the development of the Upper East Region has reported some of the gaps, when it comes to developmental achievement between some other regions and the Upper East region, especially with Upper West Region as a basis.
The basic and common research conducted by ApexnewsGh shows that Upper West got their stadium with 5,000 capacity in 2006 whereas, Upper East Region has none, the last time we checked, the people of Kassena Nankana East Municipality were protesting for the completion of their abandoned sports stadium after 4 years of promising to hand it over to them as a valentine gift. Also, research by ApexnewsGh shows that the people of Upper West opened their airport for commercial flight operations on October 15, 2019, with service by Africa World Airlines from Accra via Tamale using an Embraer 145 regional jet. In the Upper East, the Airport promises brought division and unfortunately ended regrettably without even a drone center for the region.
However, research by ApexnewsGh also shows that the people of the Upper West Region commissioned their Passport Application Center (PAC) in 2020 which is actively in use at this point. In the Upper East Region, the story is different. It took ApexnewsGh report in October 2021 and a follow-up to the authority. Then, in March the region received funding support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to begin construction of a passport office. The construction is supposed to last for 3 months and as we write, is already 5 months the construction is still not completed following the land owner’s demands for land settlement.
According to Apexnewsgh.com research, the 160-bed capacity Upper West Regional Hospital was made open to the general public on January 9, 2020, even after a little delay. Because President Akufo Addo earlier commissioned the US$ 52 million facilities in August 2019. Whereas, in the case of the Upper East Region, the $20 million between the government of Ghana and Saudi Arabia in 2019 for the completion of Bolgatanga Regional Hospital was truncated and it has since ended on that note without achieving the regional hospital agenda.
Apexnewsgh.com/Ghana/Ngamegbulam Chidozie Stephen
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