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The Coalition of Northern Savannah Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) led by the Northern Patriots in Research and Advocacy (NORPRA) have lauded Mr Charles Akelyira Abugre, the immediate past Chief Executive Officer of SADA for his exceptional performance during his reign as the head of the Authority.
Mr. Abugre was appointed as the CEO of the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority, (SADA) In June 2014 when he was then serving as the African Regional Director of the UN Millennium Campaign.
During his period in Office, Mr Abugre used his over 20 years of experience in Economic and International Development to transform SADA after it was hit with several scandals in its inception years.
The Northern CSOs are of the view that Mr Abugre deserves special commendation for the hard work he put into ensuring that SADA was put back on track before its transition into The Northern Development Authority (NDA) this year.
A statement signed by Mr Bismark Adongo Ayorogo, Executive Director of NORPRA noted that, “As a matter of fact, the immediate past CEO of SADA defied all odds and worked so hard to re-organize, restructure and reposition SADA very well with strong systems and structures capable of effectively and efficiently delivering on its core mandate of transforming the northern savannah areas of Ghana into a place of opportunity for all and free from poverty and deprivations.”
According to the statement, Dr Majeed Haroun, the New CEO of the NDA had acknowledged the good initiatives of SADA and indicated his readiness to continue to consolidate the gains made so far and improve upon them for a transformed northern savannah.
“The new Chief Executive Officer of Northern Development Authority, Alhaji Dr.Majeed Haroun deserves special commendation for publicly affirming his administration’s commitment to continuing the good initiatives and essential footprints of SADA under Mr Charles Abugre for the purpose of stipulating and accelerating socio-economic transformation of the savannah belt of Ghana,” it added.
The CSOs Coalition expect the new management would review the SADA Master Plan which is a very comprehensive development blue-print for total transformation of northern Savannah, incorporate the development priorities of the current administration into it and adopt it as a working document for improved livelihoods of the poor, vulnerable and marginalized groups in underserved communities in northern Ghana.
It said Considering the aged-long structural and systematic marginalisation of northern Ghana through different state policies before and after independence which largely accounted for today’s high incidence of poverty and deprivations in the area, “ it is important that government pays much more attention to the Northern Development Authority (NDA) by increasing budgetary allocations to NDA beyond the $1 million per constituency under the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP) to be implemented by NDA.
“It is again the expectation of this CSOs Coalition that government would appreciate our position that a Policy of Equality as applied in IPEP is not the best policy option to effectively transform the northern savannah belt and address inequalities and the development imbalances in Ghana.”
By: Mohammed Suleman
