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Regional News of Friday, 26 April 2013

Source: The Al-Hajj

Salaga cries for help as bad roads affect livelihoods

By Iddrissu A. Jara

Despite the numerous strategies adopted by governments, both past and present, the developmental gap between the Northern and Southern part of the country continue to widen.

Taking a journey through the northern part of the country, one comes across a number of towns which beg for very basic social amenities thereby making life very unbearable.

One of such communities is Salaga, in the Northern region of Ghana.

Even though it is one of the ancient cities in the country, it can not boast of a single tarred road, a situation that is making life difficult for the farming communities to transport their farm produce.

This situation has mounted enormous pressure on the NDC Member of Parliament (MP) for the Salaga constituency , Alhaji Abubakar Ibrahim Dey, The Al-Hajj has learnt.

Speaking to The Al-hajj, Alhaji Dey mentioned some of the developmental challenges facing the constituency Alhaji Abubakar as the shortage of water, lack of electricity and bad road network.

Particularly, the MP expressed worry over the bad roads that link Salaga to Makango, Salaga to Tamale, Salaga to Bimbila and Salaga to Kpandai which are begging for urgent attention.

Alhaji Ibrahim Dey who has just returning from his constituency where he visited over 200 communities out of the 500 communities within his constituency indicates that no single major road has been tarred in the East Gonja District in the last 30 years.

He said some villages have been totally cut-off due to lack of social amenities like water and electricity.

“The whole Salaga Township has no potable drinking water, people get water from the dam or the rivers and some from the boreholes which is located very far away from their residence before accessing it”, he added.

The legislator has therefore appealed to the relevant agencies to come to aid of the area since it remains a major food basket for the country with most of people being farmers.

The MP further appealed to President John Mahama to direct the agencies to attend to the urgent needs of the people in Salaga who feel neglected for the past 30 years.

He also reminded the President the promises he made to the people of Salaga during in his campaign tour of the area.