Regional News of Friday, 20 February 2004

Source: GNA

Deputy Minister predicts NPP victory in the North

Nalerigu (NR), Feb. 20, GNA - Hajia Alima Mahama, Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and Presidential Initiative has predicted that the NPP government would win overwhelmingly in the northern sector in this year's general elections due to the development projects going on there. She said the party would also win the Nalerigu parliamentary seat from the NDC, which she would contest to indicate that the popularity of the NDC was dying in the area.

The Deputy Minister mentioned some of the on-going projects as the tarring of all the Nalerigu and Kambaga township roads, the establishment of a youth leadership training centre as well as the building of two dual carriage bridges at Nayoko to link Kambaga and Walewale to Nalerigu and another at Nagbo and Gbintiri also linking the Nalerigu Hospital and other surrounding communities to Nalerigu at the cost of 1.6 billion cedis and 2.6 million US dollars respectively. She told the GNA at Nalerigu on Friday that the government was also adopting measures to seek funding to embark on a sugar cane and mass groundnut production under the President's Special Initiative in the Northern Region, which Mamprugu would be a beneficiary.

She announced that she would collaborate with the District Assembly to adopt pragmatic measures to ensure that the witches' hive at Nalerigu was properly managed to assist the suspected witches to leave deserving lives. She said the tax friendly budget, which favoured the North was a clear testimony that the government had Northerners at heart. She called on all Northerners to rightly position themselves to take advantage of this business friendly budget by establishing agro-processing industries to help alleviate their poverty.

Hajia Mahama appealed to the people to register massively during the voters register replacement exercise, which would start from March 16 to 29 saying: "It is only when you register that you can help the government to retain power."