Tamale, July 04, GNA - Alhaji Mustapha Ali Idris, Northern Regional Minister on Wednesday launched a 500,000 new Ghana Cedis (five billion cedis) fund to purchase a standby generator for Tamale Teaching Hospital.

It is being jointly co-ordinated by Youth Empowerment Centre, an NGO, Northern Regional Co-Coordinating Council (NRCC), Tamale Concern Citizens' Association (CCA), and traditional rulers. The NRCC pledged 10,000 new Ghana Cedis (100 million cedis), each of the 18 Metropolitan and District assemblies in the Northern Region 1,000 new Ghana Cedis (10 million cedis), the three Parliamentarians from Tamale Metropolis 1,000 new Ghana Cedis (10 million cedis) each, Youth Empowerment Centre 2,000 new Ghana Cedis (20 million cedis) while the public contributed 184,830 new Ghana Cedis (1,848,300 cedis) in cash.

Alhaji Idris appealed to the public to contribute generously saying: "Central government alone cannot provide all the development needs of the people. The public in their small way can also assist." He was optimistic that with the acquisition of a standby generator for the hospital, the problem of power supply would be curtailed. Mr Edward Ameyibor, General Manager of "Diamond FM", a Tamale radio station, lauded the facilitators for such a brilliant idea and assured them of free airtime to achieve their goal.

He said it was time Northern Ghana begun to support development to lift the people out of poverty, disease and illiteracy. Mr Basharu Daballi, President of Concerned Citizens Association said the collaborators had formed a four-member committee as signatories to the account of the fund.

The accounts number 0100170924400 has been opened at Tamale branch of Standard Chartered Bank.