Vice President Kwesi Bekoe Amissah Arthur has called for greater fiscal discipline in the execution of the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA)’s mandate to transform the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone.
He was speaking at the official launch of the maiden edition of Business and Investment Forum organized in Tamale by the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) in collaboration with the Ghana Institution of Engineers.
The five days event is on the theme, “Engineering opportunities and shared prosperity in the Savannah Region of Ghana.”
Vice President Amissah Arthur emphasized the need for SADA and its collaborators to act as game changers to rapidly transform the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone.
He lauded the current SADA management and Board’s transformational agenda.
He advised chiefs in the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone to make land acquisition less cumbersome to investors but however cautioned them against the wholesale of lands.
He said government was committed to intensify Private-Public-Partnership to make the Better Ghana agenda a reality.
SADA’s CEO
SADA’s Chief Executive Officer, Charles Abugri explained the rationale behind the forum, “The five-days event has one main message which is that the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone has the potential to lift the growth and transformational potential of the entire country, make it a truly middle income country for all if the appropriate attention by the public and private sectors was given to addressing the infrastructure deficits and harnessing the immense productive potentials that lie unexploited to date.”
He added, “SABIF 2015 and Tamale 2015 is one modest effort to draw attention to this zone not simply as a place for transfers and charity but economic giant that needs to be awoken.”
According to Charles Abugri, the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone possessed 6.1 million hectares land suitable for the cultivation of cereals, legumes, tubers and cash crops but that 1.5 million land had been utilized.
“The SADA zone is a large market if we see the zone as a bridge to the southern part of Ghana as well as to the rest of the Guinea Savannah, our neighbors in the north: to harness this market, we make the ECOWAS protocols actually meaningful and SADA can facilitate these.”
One of the principal speakers, Victor Koh from Singapore touched on all sectors of Singapore’s economy including equitable justice delivery system, quality education, quality health delivery and affordable housing.
He attributed Singapore’s infrastructural development successes to all inclusive governance.
He said all Singapore citizens have been empowered and given a stake to actively participate in national discourse.
Victor Koh proudly disclosed that the adult class in Singapore owned housing units because the government resolutely dealt with the nation’s housing deficit.
He challenged leaders of developing countries to be focused and stop comparing their nations with the developed world.
Durbar of chiefs
Vice President Amissah Arthur later addressed a Durbar of chiefs at the Tamale Sports Stadium.
He said government would commit enough resources to eradicate extreme poverty and radically transform the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone.
He implored the chiefs, Regional Coordinating Councils, Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives to collaborate with SADA management and the Board to transform the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone.
The Regent of Dagbon in a speech read on his behalf, Kampakuya Naa Yakubu Andani bemoaned the earlier exclusion of SADA from the 2015 budget.
He thereby appealed to government to allocate enough resources to the SADA management to execute its mandate.
“We believe that determined pursuance of SADA’s objectives in the six main spheres of interest, modernization of the agriculture sector, strategic infrastructure development, an indigenous private sector development and strengthening existing ones, climate change protection, resilience and livelihood protection and finally pursuing a strong linkage between the Northern Savannah and the Sahelian countries will contribute in a major way to bridge the North/South development gap that has been a source of great concern to successive governments and well-meaning compatriots.”
By: Abdul Karim Naatogmah/citifmonline.com/Ghana