According to him, the party structures in the region are not well resourced to effectively win the party more parliamentary seats and improve the presidential votes of the party.

Alhaj Achuliwuor, who was speaking at a press conference in Bolgatanga to outline his plans for the party, also said that he would support constituency executives to be “responsive and available to the new paradigm to register new members and increase the region political fortunes.”

“I will embark on initiatives such as one constituency one project where each of the fifteen constituencies will be allocated one big project to be executive by constituency executive of whose proceeds could be used to support campaigns and purchase of pickups to run the party. There shall also be the One-Constituency One -Office project where office complex shall be constructed for all constituencies with a secretariat to conduct party business”.

The initiative, he said will also get the Tertiary Students Confederacy (TESCON); student wing of the party to engage community members as part of membership drive in the Region.

He said he would facilitate the constitution of community education teams among TESCON branches on the various campuses, and support them with logistics to enable them to engage community members and explain government policies, programmes and plans to them.

“I have a strong conviction that TESCON members coming from the academia can influence community decisions to bring on board new members to the fold,” he said.

Alhaj Achuliwor noted that the NPP has not been visible in the region and so its performance has not been satisfactory and said he would re-branded the NPP in the region to make it more attractive to win more members to it side, adding that “my administration will ensure that it is done and done well to speed up the membership drive programme.”

“I am poised to change the perception that the NPP was an Akan party in the region and indicated that it was fair for the electorates to know that the party carved the name New Patriotic Party from the Northern People’s Party which was an extension of the Danquah-Dombo-Busia tradition.

As part of strategies to disabuse the minds of people that the NPP was Akan party, Alhaj Achuliwuor emphasized on the need to make people appreciate some belongingness to clear the perception which their opponents used against it.

He further noted that strategies would be in place to engage party members to reap the fruits of their struggle”.

“I shall commission a survey to take data of our members in the region. This data would look out for artisans and these artisans would be attached to contractors who win contracts. My office shall sign a memorandum of understanding with the contractors to engage member artisans.”

This, according to Alhaj Achuliwor would clear the way and ensure that members who may have the capacity to win contracts are engaged to earn a living and further expand the party’s chances and make it attractive in the Region.

He also hinted that plans were far advanced to bring on board eminent elders of the party with the pedigree to bring all party members together and eliminate issues of factionalism because they were a family even though they deserved and reserved their differences.

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By: Frederick Awuni/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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According to the Upper East Regional Education Director, Patricia Ayiko, an order was given from the Headquarters of the Ghana Education Service instructing the immediate abrogation of their engagement.

Speaking to Citi News on the developments in Bolgatanga, Mrs Ayiko explained that the GES held that the recruits with such educational backgrounds will be of no use in the delivery of quality education.

“So headquarters said we should retrieve their appointment letters because the courses they went and did, they didn’t do the courses to come and teach because we don’t know what they are going to teach,” Mrs Ayiko stated

“We were authorized by the Director General of the Ghana Education Service (GES) to return all those letters. So they can’t teach in GES that is why we have been asked to retrieve their appointment letters.”

Mrs Ayiko could not give the number of recruits affected but emphasized that those who refused to return their appointment letters won’t be allowed to keep teaching.

It is, however, unclear why the Ghana Education Service would engage recruits with such qualifications if their services were not needed.

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By: Frederick Awuni/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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This was disclosed by Ghana National Household Registry (GNHR).

The ongoing household data collection under the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MOGCSP) targets over two hundred thousand households in the region, with a population of over One Hundred Million.

The exercise which will involve the collection of household information in the thirteen districts of the region will also include the classification households into poor, non-poor and extremely poor.

Speaking to Citi News in Bolgatanga, Acting National Coordinator of GNHR-MOGCSP, Dr Prosper Laari said, the exercise will provide the government with accurate data of the vulnerable for policy formulation and implementation.

“Once we successfully complete the data collection exercise, it means that we have a database in the Upper East Region such that, any time there is the need for social intervention programs like free school uniforms, LEAP, school feeding among others the right people will benefit.

The data will also provide information on the state of infrastructure such as roads, schools, water and social services critical for both national and local planning”

Dr Laari said the household registration exercise when completed will provide a centralized data for target the vulnerable and prevent multiple and duplicated data collection by other agencies.

He added that the registration exercise which ends in the region on 31st March 2018, has registered over 80 percent of targeted households and was hopeful of covering all households.

Upper East Regional Minister Rockson Bukari said government quest to have a single database of the vulnerable is to ensure judicious use of resources on vulnerable in society and eliminate corruption.

He argued that the lack of data on households with the current system makes social intervention programmes targeted at the vulnerable difficulty since there is no data as to who is poor and in which community.

Mr Rockson appealed to the enumerators to get every household registered since it will guide government policy formulation targeted at the vulnerable.

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By: Frederick Awuni/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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Under the performance agreements, the 13 MDAs are required to initiate innovative strategies to generate local revenues with support from the government, geared towards job creation, prosperity and equal opportunity for all citizens.

Key among the areas for improved performance are infrastructure, social services, economic development as well as environment and sanitation. The rest are education, water, health, agriculture and enterprise development.

Speaking at the ceremony in Bolgatanga, Upper East Regional Minister Rockson Bukari, entreated the various Chief Executives to provide resources and political backing, while coordinating directors assemble the resources for achieving the set goals.

Mr. Bukari stressed that the assemblies have no excuse for not meeting the targets set in the contracts.

He urged assemblies to scale up their revenue mobilization strategies and database development to aid their quest to achieve the contract objectives.

The Acting Chief Director of the Upper East Regional Coordinating Council, Alhaji Mahamadu Azonko, said the RCC will monitor the progress and provide assistance to address any challenges during the implementation of the signed contracts.

He impressed on MDCEs to expedite action on completing and furnishing the RCC with their medium-term plans for the period between 2018 and 2021.

For his part, the Dean of MDCEs in the region, Mr. William Aduum pledged to work in synergy with all key stakeholders to achieve the goals set in the signed contracts.

The ceremony was attended by all the 13 Municipal and District Chief Executives and their Coordinating Directors.

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By: Frederick Awuni/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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Mr. Awankua, said the few [3] NPP parliamentary seats in the region was due to the poor leadership and disunity among the regional executives.

He said he’s motivated to lead the party at the regional level in order to unite all of its members to collaborate to win at least six parliamentary seats in the region at the next general elections in 2020.

Speaking to Citi News after picking his nomination forms at the party office in Bolgatanga, Mr. Awankua said he was optimistic that his leadership will ensure the region gets its fair share of the national cake.

“I am in this race because during the 2016 elections, I was in the Upper East Region campaigning for the NPP and I saw some gaping holes; there was no party unity and parliamentary candidates were not resourced adequately and party chairmen were struggling to work. So I am in this race to close the disunity in the party and to win more seats.”

“But having worked with top NPP stalwarts I decided that, with the experience and networks I have established over the years I can develop the NPP in the region,” he said.

Mr. Awankua said the region needed a chairman with good working relationship and lobbying skills to bring about the needed development to the region.

He emphasized that an NPP under him in the region, will ensure that financial resources are made available to help the region to secure significant votes at the next polls.

Filson Awankua, who is an engineer by training, said through his network in the corporate world, he will nurture and create job opportunities for citizens in the region.

Mr. Awankua appealed to all delegates in the upcoming regional executive elections of the NPP slated for April 2018,  to vote massively for him to lead the party to victory come 2020.

He is going into the contest alongside incumbent party chairman, Ibrahim Mutala Mohammed, Alhaji Abdallah Achulou Otito, Anthony Namoo and Agongo Joseph.

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By: Frederick Awuni/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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The CLTS model, which encourages communities to use local materials to construct latrines was adopted in 2015 and triggered the certification of 15 communities as open defecation free, with 42 more being certified in 2016.

Speaking at a ceremony to unveil the 2017 Upper East Regional Open Defecation Free League table in Bolgatnaga, Acting Regional Environmental Office Juventius Asayuure said, the region was on course to end open defecation by 2019.

On the league table, the Garu-Tempane District came first, followed by the Binduri, Bawku West, Kassena-Nankana West and Bongo Districts.

The rest are the Builsa South, Pusiga, Builsa North, and Talensi Districts. The Kassena-Nanaka Municipality and the Nabdam and Bolgatanga districts came last.

Mr. Asayuure, however expressed worry at the alarming rate of open defecation in the urban areas while rural communities were embracing the CLTS model.

He challenged those authorities responsible for these areas to enforce sanitation by-laws by prosecuting and naming and shaming sanitation offenders.

Mr. Asayuure added that, eight police prosecutors have been sent to Tamale for a refresher course to strengthen the fight against open defecation.

The stakeholder forum, attended by co-coordinating directors, environmental health officers, Municipal and District Chief Executives and civil society organizations, deliberated on how to scale up the model to cover more communities.

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By: Frederick Awuni/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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He said the Upper East Region, with a population of about 1, 124,193, had only two national ambulances serving the entire Region, and that compelled relatives of most referred patients from hospitals especially the Regional Hospital to rely on commercial vehicles.

Some relatives of patients pay high amounts of money to commercial vehicle operators to transport the sick in vehicles which are not structured for such purposes, to their referred destinations for medical care, he said.

The Administrator also expressed worry about the use of all manner of vehicles as ambulances, saying that they were not for such purpose, and lacked equipment.

“…Before you can call a vehicle an ambulance, it must have a bed and all the necessary medical equipment and medications with trained personnel to mount it.”

Mr. Awini said most districts in the Region did not have the requisite requirements for ambulance services such as an office and residential accommodation for personnel, appliance bay and telephones, which were the requirements for ambulance service.

He said Bolgatanga, Navrongo, Sandema, Garu, Zebilla, Tongo and Chiana were able to meet the requirements, whilst the rest of the Districts could not, after several attempts.

“This narrowed the number of ambulances in the Region to only seven, presently as we speak; the Zebilla ambulance was involved in an accident and has not been replaced because we do not have ambulances.”

“Recently, the Sandema one was transporting a case from the Regional hospital to Tamale and when it got to Walewale, the whole ambulance burnt completely,” Mr Baba recounted.

He said the situation further narrowed the ambulances to five, with only Bolga and Garu functioning, and disclosed that Chiana, Navrongo and Tongo’s ambulances were broken down, “so in the whole Region for now, we have just two ambulances working”.

He said as part of measures to maintain the two in the Region, management decided that cases would not be transported beyond Tamale, so as not to overwork them.

He said in all the Regions in Ghana, only the Upper East had as low as seven ambulance stations, and expressed concern that Bawku, a referral hospital, did not have an ambulance.

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Source: GNA

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The Region made progress in malaria control, as the proportion of suspected malaria treatment increased from 86.4 per cent in 2016 to 93.8 in 2017, while fatality rate for children under five declined consistently from 0.72 per cent in 2015 to 0.51 and 0.3 in 2016 and 2017 respectively.

[contextly_sidebar id=”GEs4cr3DJjJYITlFCAib83p3w7KOq3wP”]Mr. Abilba however said the figures could further decline if the media comes on board to help spread the message on the effective and proper use of the LLIN to ensure a malaria free society.

He said even though there was data to show that the Upper East was one of the Regions with high availability and access to bed nets in the country, the usage was a challenge, “most of us have bed nets, but how many of us sleep under them, so it is important for the media to help us in this aspect.”

Mr. Abilba made the call in Navrongo at a media training workshop organised by the African Media and Malaria Research Network (AMMREN), in partnership with the Navrongo Health Research Centre (NHRC) and the Ghana Health Service with sponsorship from Comic Relief UK and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

The event was held on the theme: “The role of the media in strengthening the quality of malaria care and surveillance in Ghanaian communities,” and brought together about 13 Journalists drawn from different media outfits within the Region to school them on malaria and its prevention.

He said the initial chemicals used on the Insecticide Treated Net (ITN) had a short life span of three months, but the current chemical used on the LLINs would last for three years, and said the ideal thing to do was to get the net that could contain the insecticide for a long time.

Mr. Abilba indicated that the essence of the LLIN was not for people to just own it, but to use it to prevent mosquito bites, and said with the support of the media, education on its use would reach a greater population because it was one of the challenges facing the Public Health Unit in the Region.

The focal person said there were LLINs mass distributions extended to antenatal and measles 2 clients and schools.

The Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC), Malaria Case Management and Capacity Building Trainings were all part of malaria control interventions on-going in the Region, he said.

Mr. Abilba, who is also a Medical Entomologist, attributed challenges of malaria treatment to poor health seeking behaviour of parents for children under five years, high Intermittent Preventive Treatment of malaria in pregnancy (IPTp), high dropout rate during treatment and poor LLIN use.

He said it was the Region’s priority to reduce malaria morbidity and mortality by improving Intermittent Preventive Treatment (IPT), Sulphadoxine-Pyrimethamine (SP) services for pregnant women, reduce human-malaria vector contact and under five-year malaria case fatality, improve malaria diagnosis and its case management, and also to audit all deaths attributed to the disease.

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Source: GNA

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Gloria Akuffo disclosed this at Bolgatanga during a familiarization tour of the Upper East Region on Thursday.

The tour to was to enable her have first hand information about the challenges confronting state attorneys in the discharge of their duties in the region.

[contextly_sidebar id=”wtLHIux0NXxSitIltn1dvfoEDV0v9YYi”]She recounted numerous problems confronting state attorneys in their line of duty saying government was committed to resourcing them work effectively and efficiently.

“We have problems with staffing, vehicles, office equipment and accommodation confronting the justice delivery system. I have tried to explain that there have been some neglect, but as of now there are constraints with money and by the time government finishes servicing the loans and meeting statutory obligations, we would have much left to share but whatever little we get we will try to use it in such a manner that all my offices will get something to work with.”

“In respect of staffing, we have be given approval to recruit about Fifty (50) Attorneys, they are going through the recruitment process, and once the process is completed we will send some lawyers to the Upper East Region. In the meantime, I have asked the National Service Secretariat (NSS) to post to my office all lawyers who are newly enrolled and will not have performed their National service yet so we can use them to support Attorneys in the regions,” Miss Akuffo stated.

Miss Akuffo also indicated that, government would soon procure some vehicles for state attorneys to facilitate their operations.

State attorneys ditching gov’t for better paying jobs

There were reports in 2016 which suggested that State Attorneys were abandoning the judicial service for better paying jobs.

According to the Director of Public Prosecution at the time, Yvonne Attakora Obuobisa, the trend hampered the delivery of justice across the country.

She noted that as at 2016, Accra had only 36 prosecuting attorneys, noting that the situation was “worse in the regional offices.”

She said a region as big as the Brong Ahafo Region could boast of only two prosecuting attorneys, “two in the Central Region, two in the Upper West Region, three in the Northern Region, three in Volta Region, and six in the Eastern Region.”

“We have low numbers and we are actually overwhelmed. There are so many cases that we have to advise on. It all has to do with a number of factors. For some time now we’ve had high attrition rate, people come and leave because it is always better to work in private practice,” she lamented.

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By: Frederick Awuni/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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According to the group, the Upper East Regional Minister Rockson Bukari on February 1 2018, called on the Binduri chief, Naaba Akolbila Ajetwin, to announce the construction of another new assembly office block for Binduri District at Binduri-Natinga.

The youth could not fathom why the NPP government would construct another new assembly office block when there is an already constructed Binduri assembly office block.

Addressing a press conference at Binguri, spokesperson of the group, Abanga Daniel Anoyah, accused the Regional Minister Rockson Bukari, and some NPP gurus of scheming to cause chaos after a Legislative Instrument (L.I) 2146 was successfully used in citing the assembly office at Binguri.

“They are treading dangerously on warpaths and given the volatile nature of the Bawku traditional area, if this evil agenda of disturbing the peace of Binduri is not stopped, government will have itself to blame as law and order may break loose leading to chaos and insecurity. We call on President Akuffo Addo to call on the regional minister Rockson Bukari and all those behind this scheme of relocating the Binduri Assembly office block to Natinga to desist from it, else, we may be compelled to do the unthinkable”.

Mr. Abanga admonished government to rather use the resources to construct a district hospital and other facilities urgently needed in the district.

But the Upper East Regional Minister, Rockson Bukari, has debunked the allegations, stating that, he was only acting on a directive from the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development following an Accra High court ruling on the matter.

“It is not Rockson Bukari who is relocating the assembly block, I do not have such powers, it is a ruling of a court in the case of Philip Ayamba vrs the Attorney General in the citing of the assembly’s office block.

An Accra High court on the 9th January, 2014, ruled, the district assembly office block be constructed at the capital of the Binduri constituency which is Binduri and not Binguri.

In the ruling of the court Suit Number HRC/50/12 among the terms of settlements, point 6 said, the government of Ghana shall ensure that, it takes steps to commence the building of permanent principal offices of the Binduri District Assembly at Binduri in compliance with L.I 2146”.

“Again, point 3 of the settlement was that, the government of Ghana shall ensure that, all permanent structures consisting of the Binduri District Assembly shall be constructed at Binduri within two years from the date of execution of the terms of settlement.

…And this directive was given me by the Minister for Local Government and Rural Development Hajia Alima Mahama that, a contractor should construct a new assembly office block at Binduri.”

Binduri Chief comments on the matter

Commenting on the issue, Chief of Binduri, Naaba Ajetwin, confirmed the regional minister Rockson Bukari’s visit to his palace informing him of the construction of another new District assembly office for Binduri but without any concrete reason.

He further said, neither he (chief of the Binduri) nor the Tindana who are the custodians of land, have given out any land for the construction of the said new assembly office block.

“The matter on where to construct the Binduri district assembly office came up in 2012.  The Human Rights Division of the Superior court of Jurisdiction in  High court of Justice Accra, preferred an out of court settlement, which was accepted by both the plaintiffs, Mr. Philip Ayamba and seven others and the  Defendant, the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General’s Department in respect of L.I 2146.

The Legislative Instrument(L.I) 2146,  specified Binduri composing of Binguri, No.1 Zaago, No.2, Bulugu, Zuulugu, Binduri-Sarabogo, Bankago and Binduri-Natinga”.

“The then Regional Minister, Muniru Limuna, constituted a four member committee in February 17, 2014, as advised by Samuel Offosu Ampofo, the then Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, to settle the matter. The committee recommended the construction of the Binduri District Assembly Office at Binguri after stakeholder consultations out of eight communities.”

“So, I don’t understand why after a change of government, the Regional Minister Rockson Bukari, wants to relocate the office of the Assembly from Binguri to Natinga, I shall not accept this move” Naaba Ajetwin stated.

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By: Frederick Awuni/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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