Ministers from the six newly created regions yesterday took their turn at the Nation Building Updates to account for what have been achieved over the last two years.
They included; the West North, Oti, North East, Savannah, Ahafo, Bono East and Western North regions.
The update which was the 12th in the series was held in Accra and the Ministers representing their respective regions took turns to brief the nation on developments in their areas thus far.
The first to take his turn was the Minister for the Western North Region, Mr Kingsley Aboagye-Gyedu.
He commended the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for his vision in creating the new regions.
Mr Aboagye-Gyedu said the creation of the Western North had come as a source of great relief since there was no need travelling to Sekondi-Takoradi to transact administrative businesses.
He said in addition to the convenience it offered, the creation of the region had also seen to improvement in the road infrastructure in the area, stressing that “The region has a total of 3,734.4kilometres of road network and out of these only 710kilometres were paved while 2,553.50km had been gravelled.”
The Minister for the Oti Region, Mr Kwasi Owusu Yeboah, on his part, said the region had seen dramatic improvement in the provision of infrastructure.
He said areas like education, health, agriculture, roads and electricity had all seen some remarkable improvement.
In the area of education he said a total of 22,029 students had been enrolled under the government flagship programme of Free Senior High School (FSHS).
This he said was against the 2012 to 2016 figure of 8,929.
On his part, the Minister for the North East Region, Solomon Namliit Boar said the Pwalugu Multi-purpose Irrigation Dam remained not just the largest ever investment in the northern part of the country but also one that would help transform the North East Region.
He said with the area largely being an agricultural area, the government programme of Planting for Food and Jobs had benefitted the people.
In addition, he noted that the region would soon be inaugurating three greenfield factories under the One District one Factory initiative
The Minister for the Ahafo Region, Mr Evans Bobbie noted that the region was poised to develop since the necessary infrastructural foundation had been laid.
He explained that the region had so far benefitted from the construction of three critical roads.
These critical roads he said were very important to the development of the region due to huge economic potential in the areas they link up.
He said apart from the massive improvement in the road Infrastructure, more than 159 communities had been hooked into the national grid.
BY CLIFF EKUFUL
