ALAGSKOMAH ASPIRES TO BECOME BOLGA MCE (D/G Saturday, February 21, 2009. PAGE 13)

MR Michael N. Asakeya Alagskomah, a former Assemblyman for the Zaare electoral area in the Bolgatanga Municipality of the Upper East Region, who is also aspiring to become the municipal chief executive has said he would implement an aggressive sanitation programme to restore the city to its former glory and make it one of the best cities in the country.
Speaking in an interview with Daily Graphic at Bolgatanga, Mr Alagskomah, a Pharmacy Technologist in charge of the Bolgatanga municipal health centre, said that should he get the nod, he would work very hard together with his administrators to put the city in good shape and make it clean once again.
“Apart from constructing more public places of convenience, we will also embark on sustainable clean-up campaigns. It shouldn’t be once in a month or when a dignitary is coming then we run helter-skelter to put the place in order. People should learn to keep the environment decent at all times and this I intend to make through public education to make part and parcel of us,” he said.
Mr Alagskomah said he believed that when the people were healthy, they would increase productivity, adding that a clean environment would go a long way to reduce the health bill.
He noted that community hygiene was lacking in the Bolgatanga municipality, adding that when given the mandate, he intended to launch an education campaign and provide all the requisite resources to facilitate a clean environment.
Born in 1955 in Zaare, a suburb of Bolgatanga, Mr Alagskomah served during the PNDC era as a cadre in various organs and was one time chairman of the Investigation and complaints committee and head of projects and programmes.
In the recent past, he served as an assembly member for the Zaare electoral area from 1998-2002 during which period he was the chairman of the health subcommittee of the Bolgatanga municipal assembly
He said besides tackling issues of the environment, he intended to address the numerous economic challenges facing the people in the municipality.
“I am not a reservoir of total knowledge. We are blessed in this municipality with technocrats and professionals that I will bring together to see how we can look at the economic policies of the party and how to tackle the numerous development challenges facing the people,” he said.
“I believe that when we come together, we will certainly project the municipality and that will benefit all of us,” he added.
Touching on other areas of concern, he said apart from confronting the issue of sanitation and economic challenges, he intended to encourage farmers in the municipality to boost their agricultural activity and indicated that rain-fed agriculture had not been helpful over the past years.