Wa, Feb. 11, GNA - The Paramount Chief of the Nandom Traditional Are= a, Naa Dr. Puore Puobe Chiir, has appealed to government to consider increasin= g the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority Board from nine to 11 to cater for the representation of chiefs from the Upper West and Upper East regions. He said the absence of chiefs from the two regions on the Board would not do the people any good because their concerns, appeals and aspirations would not be properly catered for.

The Nandom Naa made the appeal at a forum organised for traditional authorities on the menace of bushfires on the successful implementation of the Ghana Environmental Management Project (GEMP) in the three northern regions. He said chiefs were representatives of the people at the grassroots an= d therefore, the problems of their people were well known to them. On recent announcement by government on the development of roads in the eastern corridor of the country, Naa Dr. Puore Puobe Chiir said equal attention should be paid to roads in the western corridor to link Ghana to its neighbouring countries, such as Burkina Faso and Mali to improve trade. He was of the opinion that roads in the northern regions were generall= y bad and needed to be rehabilitated to facilitate the movement of goods and services.

Naa Dr. Puore Puobe Chiir called on government to make resources available to traditional authorizes to educate their people about the dangers of bushfires and desertification. Dr. Nicholas Iddi, National Project Coordinator of GEMP, said the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology recognised the initiatives chiefs in the Upper West Region were adopting to reduce the incidence of bushfires.

He commended the chiefs and Environmental Protection Agency for helpin= g to propagate conventional and traditional methods in fighting bushfires.