[ 2016-11-25 ]

Prez Mahama expresses satisfaction with restructured SADA
President John Mahama has expressed satisfaction
with the accountability systems put in place by
the management of the restructured Savanna
Accelerated Development Authority (SADA).
He said having come out strongly from the initial
financial maladministration, SADA had positioned
itself as a true development pole for the Savanna
Zone and added that he was now satisfied that
every money invested in SADA would be put to good
use.

President Mahama said this at the National Forum
on the Transformation of the Northern Savanna
Ecological Zone in Bolgatanga yesterday.

The coalition of civil society organisations
(CSOs) in the SADA Ecological Zone put together a
series of fora to allow presidential candidates in
the 2016 election to share their visions on SADA
with stakeholders.

Yesterday was the turn of President Mahama, who
had been campaigning in the Upper East Region, to
address critical issues on the development
initiative.

Describing SADA as one of the boldest attempts at
transforming the north, the President noted that
initially a lot of things went wrong because there
were no internal systems of accounting.

"Now I do believe we are on the right track and I
will continue to give SADA my utmost support," he
assured the people.

SADA working

The President indicated that contrary to the
constant bashing of SADA in the media, the
authority was contributing to the socio-economic
development of people in the Savannah Zone.

"SADA has done more work in furthering its
objectives. A lot of its work is intangible," he
stated.

"If you don't see pick-up vehicles running around,
it does not mean SADA is not working. SADA is
working," he told the forum.

President Mahama mentioned a number of feasibility
studies conducted by SADA and added that several
intangible projects had been undertaken to attract
investment into the zone.

He disclosed that SADA had signed an Memorandum of
Understanding with a Chinese company for a full
integrated value chain development of cotton in
the Savanna Zone.

“This will be one of the biggest integrated
projects ever to be undertaken in the Savanna
Zone,” he added.

Tackling poverty

He suggested that SADA must target women in its
interventions to enable them to improve on their
income generation.

“That was why the government decided to set up
shea nut processing factories in the three
Northern regions to provide a ready market for
women in the shea nut value chain,” he said.

Already, one of the factories is working at Buipe
in the Northern Region and the President assured
the forum that in his second term in office,
similar factories would be established in the
Upper East and Upper West regions.

Stronger SADA

The Chief Executive Officer of SADA, Dr Charles
Abugri, said the initiative was now much
stronger.

"It's not what is usually said in the media," he
stated.

He said over the last two years, SADA had been
strategising on transforming the ecological zone
through especially the construction of dams.

He expressed hope that a Legislative Instrument
(LI) would be passed by the next Parliament to
give legal backing to the authority.

The Executive Director of Coalition of CSOs on
SADA Ecological Zone, Mr Bismark Adongo, expressed
concern that although Ghana had made significant
progress in reducing poverty, poverty still
prevailed in the three northern regions.

Source - Graphiconline

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