Zabzugu (N/R), April 2, GNA - Mr Umar Abdul Wahab, Zabzugu-Tatale District Chief Executive (DCE), has warned health workers in the District to ensure that they treat patients of snake bites free of charge. He has also called on the District Directorate of Health Services to put inscriptions all over their facilities indicating that treatment of sake bites was free.

Delivering his sessional address at the Assembly's ordinary meeting at Zabzugu in the Northern Region, Mr Wahab said reports reaching his office indicated that some of health workers charged patients before providing such treatments.

He warned that any health worker caught indulging in such inhuman conduct would be severely dealt with. The DCE announced that the District for the first quarter of the year, had been relatively peaceful but indicated that there were still a few areas the security agencies had to watch carefully.

"Though the Kandin Chieftaincy dispute had subsided, there was an apparent uneasiness among the belligerent groups," he said, adding that the Bikunjib and Nkalangbani land dispute was also still simmering. He urged Assembly members to serve as watchdogs and to encourage people in their communities to volunteer information about any suspicious characters to the security agencies for prompt action.

On the School Feeding Programme, Mr Wahab said four more schools had been added to the programme, bringing the total to six schools in the District. The DCE said under the District Development Facility (DDF), the District had come out with a six unit classroom block at Zabzugu Senior High School, Boys Hostel at EP Agric Senior High School in Tatale, the rehabilitation and re-roofing of a three unit classroom block at Nyankpale and the construction of three unit classroom blocks at Kandin. He stated that under the District Wide Assistance Project (DWAP), the construction of nurses quarters in Zabzugu, construction of a clinic at Sangban, the construction of a three unit classroom block, four-seater KVIP and urinal at Nure-Islamia JHS in Tatale, and the construction of a three-unit classroom block, four seater KVIP and urinal at Campuni, among others.

He added that under the Community-Based Rural Development Programme, a number of classroom blocks were being constructed at Ojuoja and Nkpazni. The Njobilbo Junction to Njobilibo feeder road and Kukpaligu-Gbaanidi-Kolikoli feeder road would also be reshaped. The General-Secretary of the National Association of Local Authorities of Ghana (NALAG), Alhaji Ibrahim Mohammed Sherif, said NALAG served as the mouthpiece of all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies in the country which seeks to ensure that Ghana's decentralization programme was successfully implemented to accelerate to allow for popular participation in local governance in the various communities

Alhaji Sherif announced that approval had been granted to procure 5,124 motor bikes for 139 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies nationwide to render assembly members mobile in the discharge of their duties, explaining that the cost of motor bikes would be paid from the District Assemblies Common Fund.

He urged the Assembly to embark on aggressive revenue mobilization efforts to compliment the District Assemblies Common Fund. In his welcome address, the Presiding Member of the Assembly, Mr Edward Atta Abebe Dawuni, commended the Zabzugu/Tatale District Security Committee, the Assembly members and the entire people of the district for the peace prevailing in the area and said everything possible must be done to maintain their enviable image.

Mr Dawuni appealed to Members of Parliament, Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, and the Administrator of the Common Fund to ban the deductions of funds from the District Assemblies Common Fund at source to enable the Assemblies to use such funds for priority projects in their communities.

He appealed to Ministry of Health to ensure that the Zabzugu/Tatale District Hospital under construction was completed before the end of the year to stop the people from travelling 49 kilometres to the Yendi Government Hospital for treatment.

The Presiding member appeals to the GETFUND Administrator to support the Zabzugu/Tatale district Assembly with funds to construct more classroom blocks particularly for children who are studying under trees. He called on the Assembly members to intensify public education on indiscriminate cutting down of economic trees like sheanut, Dawadawa trees and urged them to intensify the campaign on tree-planting in the district.