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Mr. Donatus Atanga Akamugri, the Upper East Regional Minister, has made a firm pledge to operate an open door and inclusive policy to carry the people along in addressing the numerous challenges confronting the region.
Speaking to residents of the region during his entry into the regional capital, Bolgatanga, after being sworn in as regional minister in Accra, Mr. Akamugri reiterated his commitment to ensuring that the region gets its fair share of the national cake. He therefore pledged his commitment to work with everybody irrespective of their political, religious or tribal affiliations to bring the needed transformation and to meet the high expectation of the people.
“The Upper East people have accepted me and so my office is going to be opened and transparent to everybody devoid of any political color who has any idea of moving this region forward”, he said. He reminded the residents that the region is one of the poorest in the country with high poverty levels and a plethora of challenges and underscored the urgent need to work together to change the narrative.
“The region is poor because of the way we are not able to plan together as a people” and added that, “we see it as a political game so that if somebody comes with a good idea, after he leaves office, the ideas are allowed to get rotten for nothing. “I am not going to continue with that approach. I will settle down, look at all the development policies initiated by the previous leaders and pick out those that are good and healthy for the region and implement them and where there is the need to get them (past leaders) involved I will do so”.
The Regional Minister said that the era of the ‘pull him down’ syndrome was over and would not entertain such behavior, adding that, “backbiting is one of the reasons the region is retrogressing and so if we don’t have the capacity in certain areas, we have to bring on board others who are experts to help deliver or else if you decide to say that you are the master of all, you will be the jack of none”.
The Regional Minister identified security concerns in the region as major setback and noted that he would remain neutral and work through dialogue with the factions involved in the long-standing Bawku chieftaincy conflict to support the President, John Dramani Mahama’s vision of restoring lasting peace to the area to drive development. He said apart from the loss of lives and destruction of property, the old-decades conflict had contributed to the underdevelopment of not only Bawku but the entire region and beyond with people losing their livelihoods as well as scaring investors away and therefore the need to urgently end the conflict permanently.
Mr. Akamugri said youth unemployment was one of the major challenges in the region and that he will prioritized the construction of the regional airport, Pwalugu multipurpose dam and the revival of the defunct Pwalugu tomato and Zuarungu meat factories to support the 24-hour economic policy and create sustainable employment.
Source: GNA
