Kade, Sept 4, GNA - The Kwaebibirem District is to receive a District Development Fund (DDF) of GH¢650,000 from the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development for development programmes. Additionally, it would receive GH¢32,025 for training and capacity building.

This follows the district's qualification under the 2008 Functional Organization Assessment Tool (FOAT) of all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies conducted, in September 2009 by the ministry. It is for the first time, qualifying for the facility. Mr George Agyemang Dua, District Chief Executive, at a meeting of the district assembly, announced this on Friday, at Kade. He said part of the development fund would be used for environmental and sanitation programmes such as the construction of public places of convenience, with the rest gp9ing into funding a few school blocks and the improvement of the Kade Central Market. On local authority schools, the DCE said, the executive committee observed, following a report delivered by the Education Sub-committee of the assembly, that those schools which were "babies" of the assembly had been neglected in terms of infrastructure.

"The assembly in other words, has provided more infrastructures for the mission schools at the expense of its own "babies," he observed. The executive committee, therefore, recommended that the assembly's focus, in this direction, should be about 70 percent on their schools to build their infrastructure, which were in a deplorable state. Mr Dua said the Education sub-committee on a visit to the Malam Nkwanta L/A Primary and Akenkanor L/A Primary and Junior High Schools, observed that pupils and teachers in those schools were showing signs of seriousness in their academic work in spite of the numerous challenges facing them. The committee accepted the report and expressed their belief that if the schools are given a little push they would be able to lift the name of the district soon. The executive committee, therefore, recommended that the two schools should be considered first, among others, in the distribution of the government's free school uniforms and the school feeding programme when the approval for expansion of the feeding programme is given by government. The DCE said he had directed that the abandoned six-unit classroom block at Malam Nkwanta be put under tender immediately for completion. The old contract was thereby terminated.