Paga (UER), March 01, GNA The new Kassena Nankana West District was on Friday inaugurated with call on all stakeholders to join hands and work in unity for the development of the area.

"I wish to passionately appeal to the people of the District to bring all hands on deck, bury any initial misgivings that might have come up with the declaration of the new creation and work in unity to ensure that absolute peace prevails. When there is a regime of peace and stability, development takes pace at an accelerated rate", President John Agyekum Kufuor said this in an inaugural address read on his behalf by Mr. Alhassan Samari, Upper East Regional Minister when he inaugurated the Kassena Nankana West District in Paga, the District Capital.

President Kufuor, entreated the people to make the necessary sacrifices and honour their obligations to the new District to enable it stand to firm on its feet.

"You need to pay your rates/fees/licenses regularly and on time to the District Assembly so that it will be able to mobilize the much needed local financial resources to complement whatever central government grants that would be due the Assembly to enhance the accelerated development of the District", he said. He urged the people to always use dialogue and not violent confrontations to solve their problems and misunderstandings that may arise among them.

"Let us in unity, pool out efforts and resources so that our dream of championing the course of our own development will be a reality and not a myth", he said.

Mr. Emmanuel Chegeweh, Kassena Nankana, District Chief Executive, welcoming guests to the ceremony, observed that the new District would accelerate development in the area because it would be given its own funds to cater for that part of the Kassena Nankana District from which it had been carved and sectors like Education, Health, and Agriculture would develop fast. Employment avenues shall be created in all these sectors for the unemployed thereby reducing poverty, he said.

Mr. Chegeweh said the mother Assembly had made plans for the new District to start and the Paga Town Council Office building would be used temporarily as the District Assembly offices, while the motel by the crocodile pond be rehabilitated and used as offices for the departments of the Assembly.

He said the Assembly had also given the new District two vehicles, five tractors, a computer and an amount of 30,000 Ghana Cedis for its current expenditure.

He appealed to the Government to hand over the old buildings in the area that had been put on divesture but were not bought to the assembly so that they would be renovated and used for offices. He said the chiefs and people of the area had released tracks of land for the construction of permanent structures and for future development projects.

On behalf of the chiefs and people of the area, the DCE thanked Government for granting them a second district, saying, it was a great legacy the people would always remember.

Eighteen out of the 46 Assembly members were sworn in by Justice George Osei-Kwame, Bolgatanga Circuit Court Judge. The others were not present.

The ceremony attracted many people and chiefs from neighbouring Burkina Faso.