Kaleo (UW), Sept 8, GNA - Mr Alban Bagbin, Minority Leader in Parliament at the weekend said he would use his personal resources to support chiefs in his constituency to live dignified lives because tradition was a critical element of development in Africa. To this end, he has rehabilitated an old unused primary school block to serve as offices for the Kaleo Traditional Council to ensure that the chiefs were comfortable enough to receive dignitaries in their palaces.

Mr Bagbin said this when he commissioned a 20,000 Ghana cedis street lighting project for the Kaleo Community at Kaleo in the Nadowli District of the Upper West Region. The Minority Leader, who is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Nadowli West Constituency, financed the project with his share of Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Funds.

The project was initiated by the Kaleo Optimists Club, a development oriented group of Kaleo citizens resident in Wa, the regional capital. Mr Bagbin said the provision of electricity for the town was a step that could motivate industrialists and business people to invest in the community.

He advised the people of the community to prepare for urbanisation by building the capacity of their youth to face the challenges associated with that development. The Minority Leader used the occasion to respond to his critics, saying the main duty of an MP was to talk and debate issues. "People accuse me of talking too much in parliament but that is what you voted for me to go and do. We debate in parliament to bring development," he said.

Naa Sanbunaa Anwobiri, a representative of the Chief of Kaleo, urged the youth of the community not to take undue advantage of the lights to make noise and disturb the sleep of people at night. He asked them to see environmental cleanliness as a key factor of development. Mr Eddie Kaleonaa, a spokesman for the Kaleo Optimists Club called on the youth to keep politics away from development initiatives because everyone would gain when the town was developed.