The Municipal Assembly of Sagnarigu yesterday held its first town hall meeting primarily to aid stakeholders and citizenry of the municipality appreciate and have an opportunity to information on the development interventions in the area.

The town hall meeting was also to afford the people of the area the opportunity to be informed about government programmes and projects being implemented over the period.

Addressing the Assembly, Hon. Iddrisu Mariam said the various achievements chalked by her administration over time was due to the collaboration from various stakeholders in the municipality.

The MCE who touches on various development projects including education, agriculture, health, local governance, youth development, hinted that the future of the municipality is bright due to the pace of initiatives to bring development to the doorstep of the people.

Education:

Hon. Mariam Iddrisu disclosed that since her assumption of office for the past 15 months various education sector interventions was undertaken in alliance with its decentralized departments and other development partners.

The MCE for Sagnarigu said the expansion of the School Feeding programme nationwide also affected the municipality in a positive direction, saying that, government approved 30 more schools in addition to the 36 schools approved initially making a total of 66 schools under the programme with an increase in the cost of feeding per child from 0.80p in the past to Ghc1.

She said the expansion has brought about an upturn in the number of school children under the programme from 16,217 to 25,324 representing a 56.2% increase.

“The implementation of the Free Senior High School (SHS) has amounted to a tremendous entry of students at the beginning of the 2017/2018 academic year. to her, records have proven that the new entrants of the four public SHS in the municipality as at the beginning of the 2016/2017 academic year was 3,192 as compared to with 3,602 for the 2017/2018 academic year, representing a 12.8% increase in enrolment”.

Hon Mariam stated that, the basic schools continue to receive resource boost to aid quality teaching and learning in the municipality saying that, a total of 350 mono desks and 400 dual desks have been distributed to various schools across the municipality.

“Also 450 computers, 108 Samsung Flat screen Televisions, 58 power generators and 154 cassettes were provided for some schools to ensure improvement in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the municipality”.

The Sagnarigu MCE added that various staff and teachers in the municipality have undergone series of professional and capacity building sessions to enhance quality education.

“Over 20,000 exercise books were sourced and distributed to various schools for needy students across the municipality. A total of 42 needy students all at tertiary level of education have been given financial support to pay their fees for the 2017/2018 academic year, which cost the Assembly an amount of Ghc 15,000 and so far they have compiled a list of 39 applicants seeking financial support for the ensuing 2018/2019 academic year” she said.

Health:

Hon. Iddrisu Mariam stated that various projects have been completed to enhance quality healthcare service delivery, saying that, the Assembly partner with RING to undertake interventions geared towards food nutrition and improvement in diet.

Key among the interventions she said would include the training of health staff and volunteers on several activities such as outreach planning, food cooking demonstration and anaemia prevention among others.

“Over the period we completed the construction of the following ongoing health facilities to increase access to healthcare service delivery to the people. Kpunjinga CHPS compound, Gburma CHPS compound, CPHS compound project to Sorogu. We also awarded contracts for the construction of two clinics at Kogni and Shishegu respectively. Besides these projects, the Assembly also donated 10 number hospital beds to the district health directorate to help resource some of the health facilities. Currently, all the 18 number CHPS compounds are functional, even though with varied degrees of operational challenges. The Assembly is working hard to put up benefiting structures for all of them” she said.

Agric:

The Sagnarigu MCE said the implementation of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) by the Nana Akuffo Addo led administration was of great usefulness to the development of agriculture in the municipality since the municipality is an agrarian economy.

She elaborated that last year’s farming season, 738 maize farmers, 221 rice farmers and 5 soya bean farmers benefited from the project for the cultivation of a total of 5,588 acres of farmland.

As at the beginning of this year’s farming season, she stated that the municipality received 1400 bags of maize seeds, 3244 bags of rice seeds, 466 bags of soya beans, 3100 bags of NPK fertilizer, 15500 bags of Urea fertilizer, and 1500 bags of organic (compost) fertilizer estimated to benefit 2,891 farmers for maize, rice and soya beans production.

She said the Municipal Agricultural Department is in a technology transfer collaboration with Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) on improved technologies in rice cultivation towards maximum yields of rice in the municipality. However, she stated that the Assembly was also working with other agencies to improve the state of agricultural practices in the municipality.

Besides these, the MCE for Sagnarigu, Hon. Mariam Iddrisu brought to light some success chalked by her administration in the security, water and sanitation, local governance youth development and road infrastructure sectors of the municipality.

She commended the various stakeholders of the municipality for their collaboration and contribution towards the achievement of these so far and urged that they keep the support coming since there was still a long way to go.