President John Dramani Mahama, is to open the 2015 Savanna Accelerated Development Authority’s (SADA) Business and Investment Forum (SABIF) slated for Tamale, a move to re-position SADA to scale up the financial viability of Ghana’s Savanna region.

The four-day event, starting from March 25 to March 28, which sets in motion the SADA’s transformational agenda, will focus on building the ability of SADA to deliver on its mandate, address the infrastructure problem, facilitate private investment and business development in the Savanna zone.

President Mahama, whose pledge to ensure efficiency, transparency and accountability in SADA, as well transform the Authority into the backbone of socio-economic advancement and for bridging the development chasm between the north and south of Ghana, will leverage upon his commitment to ensure that the right investment is attracted to change the fortunes of that region.

Last year, in his bid to streamline the SADA, which had attracted negative publicity due to mismanagement, the President ordered the restructuring of the Authority, the re-constitution of a new board, whose members have varied expertise in the fields of development, banking, corporate governance and law.

He tasked them to re-focus SADA's mandate towards its core business as stipulated by the SADA Act of 2010, ACT 805, to fine-tune the entity into a medium for the advancement of the three northern regions, Volta and parts of Brong-Ahafo.

The Authority is going through a period of intense restructuring, that will enable it attract the necessary investment in the savanna ecological zones of Ghana, and to position the organization to achieve its crucial strategic objectives as mandated to it by Act 805, 2010

SABIF 2015, which ties into the restructuring bid of the SADA, is expected to facilitate and promote multi-stakeholder investment policy dialogue and business match-making opportunities.

The forum will explore new frontiers in business development, leveraging on the goodwill of development partners and strategic investors, to advance the agricultural and industrial potential for the accelerated development of northern Ghana, and the country as a whole.

Under the theme: “Engineering opportunities and shared prosperity in the Savannah Region of Ghana,” the event is expected to boost government’s drive to draw the needed investments in the areas technology, Agriculture, Agro-business and Infrastructure, as well as showcase the investment and technical potentials of the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone.

Mr Charles Abugri, SADA’s Chief Executive Officer, in an interaction with the Ghana News Agency in Accra intimated that the Authority’s new SADA leadership had begun the process of re-engaging its constituencies and stakeholders with the view to rebuild trust after the institution was cast largely in the shadow of incompetence and misappropriation of public funds.

He said the institution was poised to change its way of working, and was engaging critical manpower, with SADA’s development partners making specific financial and technical commitments in the areas of institutional building, technical expertise and transport.

Mr Abugri said the primary focus of SADA now is to pursue an agenda that will see to it that widening gaps between the north and the south in terms of investment in healthcare, education and access to water, is bridged considerably.

SADA, he said, will use the forum, that is expected to attract thousands of prospective investors the area, to create and expand the opportunities and potential in the agricultural and other economic sectors in the northern savanna zone to attract international and local investment.