BAWKU CONFIRMS ABDULAI AS DCE (PAGE 16)

The Bawku Municipal Assembly has confirmed Mr Musa Abdulai, a development worker, formerly with ActionAid Ghana as its Municipal Chief Executive.
At an emergency meeting held at Bawku, 45 out of the 46 assembly members present voted in favour of the nominee, while one person voted against in an election supervised by the officials of the Electoral Commission (EC).
Mr Abdulai thanked the assembly members for the honour done him and promised to cooperate with all stakeholders to develop the municipality.
He called for the support of all the people in the municipality to work hand in hand with him in the search for permanent peace in the area and return Bawku to its former state as a bustling commercial town.
He noted that although some remarkable success had been achieved in the search for peace by the various stakeholders, more remains to be done.
Mr Abdulai, therefore appealed to the assembly members to support him in his quest to bring peace to the area.
“Until those of us who are sons and daughters of this municipality commit ourselves and energies to it, much cannot be done by the peace brokers. In other words peace cannot be imposed on us from outside”, he said.
The Upper East Regional Minister, Mr Mark Woyongo bemoaned the recurrent nature of conflict in Bawku and renewed his appeal to the assembly members to assist in the peace building efforts, adding that development cannot take place when there is no peace.



He disclosed that for the last Samanpiid festival celebrated a few days back,an amount of GH ¢10,000 was spent to beef up security and maintain the peace in the area,stressing that the conflict in the area was having a toll on the finances of the region.
Mr Woyongo expressed government’s determination to ensure that a permanent solution was found to the problem before the end of its term and called for the support of the assembly members in that direction.
The regional minister announced that the Regional Security Council intended to form a joint committee of opinion leaders from the Mamprusis and Kusasis to meet and discuss and advise the REGSEC when it should lift the curfew on the area.
“We want that decision to come from the people. We have come a long way and I do not think that we want to go back. Because the conflict is retarding the progress of this beautiful town”, he said.
Mr Woyongo said the government was committed to reducing poverty in the region and to that end, had evolved so many intervention programmes under the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority to help bridge the development gap between the north and south.
He therefore called for the support of the people to bring all that into fruition.
Rev. Fr Jacob Ayeebo, a member of the Council of State, commended the assembly members for the overwhelming support given to the President’s nominee and encourage them to continue to work together towards the development of the area.