Hohoe (V/R), Oct. 18 GNA - The Volta region has benefited from a total of 226 development projects under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Relief fund of 30.5 billion cedis between 2001 and July 2004.

The projects include, rehabilitation and construction of school infrastructure, health facilities, improvement in water supply systems and sanitation and electrical installations.

Mr Francis Nugble, Volta Regional Consultant of the Architectural and Engineering Services Limited (AESL), told the Ghana News Agency in an interview that about 90 percent of the projects had been completed while others were at nearing completion.

He said there were some projects, which were awarded directly to some Consultants in Accra from the related Ministries, which were not routed through the Regional Directorate of the AESL and could therefore not be documented.

Mr. Nugble said AESL supervised 32 projects at the cost of 13.22-billion cedis under the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFUND) in the region, which included mainly rehabilitation of school infrastructure and installation of electricity facilities to some selected schools.

In a related development, the government is implementing development projects estimated at 22 billion cedis for the Ho Polytechnic.

The projects consists works on an Auditorium costing six billion cedis, a block of four classrooms at three billion cedis, a two billion-cedi computer laboratory and a block of 12 flats for staff costing 11.5-billion cedis.

Work is also progressing on the expansion of the school's library while construction of a students' hostel complex would soon commence. In the other areas in the educational sector, four Senior Secondary Schools (SSS), namely, Krachi Secondary, Kadjebi Asato, Jasikan Bueman and Adidome SSS are benefiting from the government's project to upgrade SSS in each district of the country. The project is estimated at between 16 and 18 billion cedis each.