Prospects for the BONABOTO community - Hon.Albert Abongo

The Savannah Accelerated Development Authority: prospects for the BONABOTO community SPEECH BY Hon. Albert Abongo ON THE SAVANNAH ACCELERATED DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY:
PROSPECTS FOR THE BONABOTO COMMUNITY. ON THE OCCASION OF THE
SECOND BONABOTO NORTH AMERICA 2009 CONGRESS

MR. Chairman
Distinguished executives of the BONABOTO North America Chapter
Distinguished guest
Ladies and Gentlemen

Bridging the North-South divide in the distribution of resources and
development has dominated key government policy circles since
independence. First were the austere measures of Nkrumah’s CPP
administration to improve infrastructure - roads, basic social services and
human capital development via the free policy on education. This however
declined in the late 1960s owing to the abrupt end of the first republican
government. Thus stagnated growth in various segments of the North
attributed to bad policies, lack of political will, neglect and weak economy
manifested until the coming of the Rawlings regime, which saw significant
improvement in capital investment and the extension of electricity to Northern
Ghana in 1990.

The connection of the North to the national grid was thought of as a sustained
measure to bridging the prolonged disparity between the North and the South.
However, this somewhat did not translate into increased productivity and
development in full scale and the North-South gap continue to widen in
proportion. For instance, within the last two decades, serious external
investment to develop the natural resources of the North and generate jobs
outside farming did not yield much. Similarly agriculture which was once a
flourishing investment has declined owing largely to the removal of subsidies
and over reliance on chemical fertilizers promoted in the 1970s. This rather
unfortunate situation has engendered a range of serious socio-economic
problems and the drifting of the productive youth to the urban sprawls. This
youth engage in various harsh poor yielding occupations that have the
tendency of exposing them to social and physical affliction.

Mr. Chairman, realizing the persistent impoverishment and the many years of
social and economic exclusion of the Northern quarter of the country, His
Excellency the President, Prof. John Evans Atta-Mills in fulfillment of his
campaign promise announced in his maiden State of the Nation Address, the
establishment of the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA).
The SADA is seen as a more holistic development agency of harnessing the
development of the three northern regions and districts in the Brong Ahafo
and Volta Regions contiguous to the northern regions. It is the hope of the NDC
government that when the SADA is successfully implemented, it would not
only correct the protracted development asymmetry between the North and
the South but also facilitate sustainable development in a more balanced scale.
MR. Chairman, the government seeks to achieve eight mutually reinforcing
objectives from the SADA;
1. Consolidate and expand the idea of transforming the economy society
and culture of the three Northern Regions as elaborated in the Northern
Development Initiative
2. Incorporate the development needs of the Savannah areas, including
districts contiguous to the Northern Regions but located in northern
Brong Ahafo and northern Volta
3. Address social as wells cultural dimensions of development, while
focusing on broader economic development and wealth-creation,
especially for small-holder farmers
4. Bring about synergies in infrastructural development through improved
roads, rail, water and air transport in a manner that integrate the
Savannah economy with the southern forest economy.

5. Build a robust, Ghanaian private sector in the North, while actively
promoting international private capital investment and joint-venture
6. Invest in sustainable climate-change management, including water
resources development, drainage and flood control
7. Strengthen the role of NGOs and civil society groups in delivering
needed livelihood services to the poor and vulnerable, and reinforcing
the role of non-state actors in promoting the rights and voice of the
poorest society
8. Improve governance both at the decentralised levels and the role of
traditional authorities including chiefs and women leaders
Mr. Chairman, SADA is an ambitious development package aimed at reducing
poverty in northern Ghana to 20% of the population within the first fifteen
years. Recently the Vice President, His Excellency John Mahama kicked off
discussions with politicians, development planners and policy makers on the
proposed policy thrush of SADA. The theme of the deliberations have been
how to neatly and profitably roll over the current GH¢25 million Northern
Development Fund (NDF) into the projected GH¢200 million SADA. Indeed,
SADA is by far the biggest single Northern Ghana development stimulus
package and His Excellency the President has promised to use the
appropriation under the NDF and with the support of development partners
begin urgent development interventions in the three northern regions. The
government intend to expedite action in order to bring the needed relief to
farmers and more especially people of the poorest wealth in the north.

Mr. Chairman, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, as part of the efforts
towards realising this dream, a forum on SADA was held in Tamale to roll out
measures for a successful implementation of the policy areas. Representatives
from the District Gender Offices, leaders of the Women’s Departments of the
Ministry of Women and Children (MOWAC) in the three Northern regions, key
NGO representatives from the regions as well as Regional Economic Planning
Officers from the Regional Coordinating Councils of the Northern, Upper East
and Upper West Regions all embraced the SADA as a renewed government
commitment, towards bridging the long-standing developmental imbalance
between the North and the South. Even before these multi-stakeholder
dialogues, the Presidents has directed discussions to begin in earnest with
private sector and civil society in the northern regions to speed up
development that enhances incomes and provide employment for the youth.
Mr. Chairman, the big question then is how can the BONABOTO catchment
area meaningfully gain its fair share of the projected programmes of SADA? In
answering this question, let me first state clearly that the policy thrush of SADA
is to position the selected areas of the north as economic zones that could
serve as alternate to some national projects and BONABOTO is certainly one of
these economic zones.

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, let me state that a more recent
development towards realising the goals of the savannah accelerated
development is the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with
Sysgate Limited of Brazil to establish a sheanut processing plant in the
northern part of the country. The plant, brainchild by the Vice President John
Mahama, would allow for the export of sheabutter and help Ghana tap into
the fast expanding global shea trade projected to gross 500 million dollars per
annum within the next five years. The estimated market value for Brazil alone
is 40 million dollars per annum. When completed, the plant will process
between 40 to 100,000 tonnes of nuts yearly.

The government hopes that the establishment of the sheanut plant will create
a range of crucial economic and employment opportunities for the youth of
the three northern regions. We are optimistic that the sheanut plant will serve
as a market driven force for the abundant sheanut in the North and improve
on the livelihood of rural women.

Mr. Chairman, northern Ghana possesses huge agricultural resources and in
this era of global climatic change, our neighbouring countries – Burkina Faso
and Niger are going to rely on us for producing traditional crops with linkages
to their secondary industries. In this direction, agriculture will be given a major
attention in the savannah accelerated development. A comprehensive action
plan will soon be instigated to rehabilitate the existing irritation sites in the
three northern regions. We believe that revamping irritation alongside farmer
education on commercial cash production is critical within the broader ways of
promoting the agro-industry.

As part of the provisions of our social democratic budget, the ministries of
finance and agriculture are tasked to develop new irrigation facilities and
rehabilitate existing ones. A total of 41 dams and dugouts that were breached
during the 2007 floods in the regions of the North would be rehabilitated. The
rehabilitation of the Tono irrigation project would also be completed by the
end of this year. Cash crops such as water melon, onion, mango and others will
also be strongly recommended for cultivation to meet the expanded markets
in neighbouring states.

The Minister of Finance has already hinted that guinea fowl farmers in the
three northern regions will be supported with incubators to expand on guinea
fowl rearing. Additionally, the government intends to supply northern farmers
with breeds of sheep, goats, pigs and cattle from its breading stations to
improve the performance of our existing local breeds of livestock. The
government is also advancing plans to educate about 1,000 ruminant farmers
on hay silage conservation as a measure of increasing the stock of animal
rearing in the north to feed local industries such as the Bolgatanga meat
factory that will be revamped under the SADA. Existing veterinary laboratories
such as the one in Pong Tamale would also be enhanced to increase the
manufacture of poultry and livestock vaccines locally.

Mr. Chairman, the government also intends to create more jobs for the youth
in the north through agriculture. Already, the agriculture departments in
Upper East is encouraging and supporting the youth to channel their energy in
Agric. Funds have been secured which will be given out as credit to the youth
to engage in various forms of agricultural activities. In addition to this, a target
of 1,200 youth from the Northern, Upper East and Upper West will be trained
in agri-business. About 7,000 youth will be supported with inputs to cultivate
maize, rice or sorghum. An additional 4,000 others would be supported with
modern inputs and irrigation facilities to undertake farming in the dry season.
Mr. Chairman, access to potable drinking water continues to be a major
challenge to many areas of the North. Therefore, as part of the accelerated
development measures, my Ministry intends to quickly as possible facilitate
the delivery of boreholes to all regions of the North. It is expected that Upper
East will benefit from 245 boreholes, Upper West, 212 and Northern, 175
boreholes. Plans are also advanced to initiate small town pipe schemes to
supplement the current pipe water schemes in the various townships. Upper
East will benefit from 1 scheme whiles Northern region which has suffered
perennial water problems will have 7 schemes.
A key component area of the savannah accelerated development is to harness
the potential resources of the north and transform them to the benefit of the
people. Therefore all existing tourism areas will be given a major boost
through infrastructural development. The Tongo Mountains, the Paga
crocodile pond, the Kusanaba Eco-tourism and others will be given a new face
look under SADA.

Mr. Chairman, part of the planned policy areas is to take advantage of the
sunshine in the north and establish solar energy as an alternative to the
national grid. This solar energy is expected to improve the intermittent power
supply especially in the regional capitals of the North. Regular power supply
will improve upon the operation of local industries, mechanise farming and
reduction in electricity tariffs. The tomato factory in Pwalugu and the
Bolgatanga meat factory which will be brought back to operation are expected
to take advantage of this solar power and expand on productivity.
Mr Chairman, let me conclude by saying that cognisance need to be taken of
the fact that an uncooperative approach to concretising the goals of SADA
could erode the very positive and harmonising factors, and shutter the current
sense of optimism. We have in a number of situations encounter
circumstances where the very people of BONABOTO fail to release land,
needed resources or even cooperate with government development related
projects, thereby allowing such projects to cross over to other areas.
BONABOTO need to be vigilant and open our minds to considering all of the
explicit and flourishing opportunities of SADA and turn an old face to
unconscious variables - cultural, social and political which have contributed to
the failure of past Northern oriented policies.
The NDC government under Atta Mills is opened to everyone who is positive
minded and wish to contribute his or her quota to moving Ghana forward in
the right direction. You as people in the Diaspora are strongly reminded of the
task ahead of us in developing the North. We are miles behind the Southern
part of the country, but we belief the opportunities of this turn of the 21st
century such as SADA will fill the void. It is a challenge for everyone here to
network with our families back home and encourage them to assist the
government with the needed resources when necessary to bring into fruition
the action plans of SADA.

Thank you and God bless you

Albert Abongo