![\"PIAC\"](\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/PIAC.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA concerned citizen of the Upper East Region has renewed calls for the construction of a railway from Accra to the Paga Ghana-Burkina Faso border.<\/p>\n
He made the suggestion at a day’s public forum organized in Bolgatanga by the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) in partnership with the Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists (IFEJ).<\/p>\n
The forum formed part of activities lined up for some PIAC and IFEJ members five days working visit to some selected project sites in the three regions of the north.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
According to the participant, a railway network linking the South to the North will attract investors and development partners to invest in the area.<\/p>\n
Other participants raised alarm over the huge disparities in the allocation of the oil revenue to finance governmental projects across the country.<\/p>\n
They proposed that the three regions of the north with monumental infrastructural deficit should rather gain more from the oil revenue.<\/p>\n
This, in their estimation could bridge the yawning development gap between Southern and Northern Ghana required to curtail the mass exodus of the youth to the south in search of jobs.<\/p>\n
They further admonished government to fix the deplorable road network in the three regions of the north.<\/p>\n
They also impressed upon government to completely eliminate schools under trees, a\u00a0situation they revealed is widespread in the Upper East region where school dropout is high.<\/p>\n
A renowned retired educationist, Sir. Robert Ajene who initiated the Bolgatanga Polytechnic attributed Ghana’s underdevelopment to the misuse of the nation’s natural resources.<\/p>\n
He recommended that Ghana as a sovereign state should develop its own peer review mechanism as means of prioritizing the nation’s transformation.<\/p>\n
Sir. Robert Ajene condemned the politicization of every sector of the economy and called for an immediate paradigm shift.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Chairman of PIAC who doubled as\u00a0representative\u00a0of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS), Professor P.K. Buah-Bassuah, presented the PIAC 2015 Annual report on the management of petroleum revenues in Ghana.<\/p>\n
The public forum which marked the 9th edition and sponsored by Germany’s development partners called GIZ sort to deepen social auditing and AccountAbility’ on the oil revenue.<\/p>\n
As an independent fact finding committee, he reaffirmed PIAC’s steadfastness in holding managers of the oil revenue accountable to the citizens.<\/p>\n
Professor Bassuah maintained that PIAC will resist any governmental influence on its findings.<\/p>\n
He gave the assurance that the three regions of the north will benefit from a chunk of the oil revenue meant for the 2016 disbursement.<\/p>\n
Six out of the 13 PIAC members on the tour are Professor P.K. Buah-Bassuah, Dr. Affail Monney, representing the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), Dr. Steve Manteaw, representative of the Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GHEITI), Dr. Thomas Stephens, a member of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), Osabarima Kwaw Entsie II, a member of the National House of Chiefs and Naa Koteitsoo Afrasomanso I.<\/p>\n
President of the Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists, Lloyd Evans led the media team including Veteran journalist\/broadcaster, Rayborn Bulley, IFEJ member and Beatrice Torshie Torto, IFEJ member.<\/p>\n
Metro TV’s Ashanti regional correspondent, Beatrice Spio- Garbrah, Martina Bugri of Tamale based Radio Justice, Graphic Business desk reporter, Jessica Acheampong, Viasat 1s western regional correspondent, Theophilus Adjei Anim, Zinhua news Accra reporter, Francis Tandoh and Citi Fm’s Abdul Karim Naatogmah formed part of the media team.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
By: Abdul Karim Naatogmah\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A concerned citizen of the Upper East Region has renewed calls for the construction of a railway from Accra to the Paga Ghana-Burkina Faso border. He made the suggestion at a day’s public forum organized in Bolgatanga by the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) in partnership with the Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":232544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-232437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=232437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/232544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=232437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=232437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=232437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}