Bawku (UE) Feb. 3, GNA - The Ministry of Defence in collaboration with the Ghana Armed Forces, has established a military barracks at Bazua in the Binduri Constituency in the Bawku Municipality in the Upper East Region. The facility which was provided by the government and the assembly is valued at 16,000,00 Ghana Cedis and will accommodate personnel of the Airborne Force in Tamale to bring about lasting peace to Bawku and to serve as a focal point for maintaining law and order in the region. Inaugurating the facility, the Defence Minister Lieutenant General Joseph Smith (Rtd) asked the chiefs and people of Bawku especially the two feuding factions to see the soldiers as friends who have come to facilitate the development of the area.

He appealed to the feuding parties to forgive one another to promote progress. General Smith expressed the hope that the facility would help to speed up the peace process in the area. He noted that government has plans to develop the North including Bawku and cited the Rural Safety Net Project, the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) and the Northern Rural Growth Programme as examples. The programme has attracted 104.3 million dollars from the International Fund for Agriculture Development and Africa Development Bank and would be spent on rural development with the aim of addressing poverty in the North.

Gen. Smith commended the soldiers for accepting to serve mother Ghana at the expense of their lives and urged them to deliver as expected. The Regional Minister Mr. Mark Woyongo noted that the military barracks was a great source of relief to solving problems related to the conflict, and said time spent travelling the long distance from Tamale to move troops to Bawku when the conflict flared up would be reduced. He cautioned that the establishment of the barracks was no guarantee that lasting peace would return to Bawku, stressing "peace that endures and lasts should originate from the hearts and minds of the two factions- Mamprusis and Kussasis."

Mr. Musah Abdulai, Municipal Chief Executive said the barracks was a step to ensure the maintenance of law and order in the area. He said government had embraced peaceful co-existence as one of its topmost priorities because of the benefits attached, adding that law and order, human safety and security remains the cornerstone of government's internal security policy.