2ND LADY TOURS UE, SHEABUTTER FACTORY UNDER CONSTRUCTION FOR CHIANA WOMEN 21st OCT., 2020

  The Second Lady, Her Excellency Hajia Samira Bawumia has started a four day tour of the Upper East Region, with a courtesy call on the paramount chief of the Builsa Traditional Area, Nab Azantilow Azagsuk II and also addressed a durbar of the chiefs and people of the area during which she extolled the good deeds of President Nana Addo’s government to the public. 

The 2nd Lady At The Sandema Durbar

 

Hajia Samira appealed to the chiefs and people of the area to vote massively for the New Patriotic Party [NPP], to retain it in government so that President Nana Addo and his administration would continue such good interventions and development including the Free Senior High School for which, additional promises have been made for expansion to cover tertiary levels of education and the inclusion of free textbooks and free school uniform, absorption of examination and library fees. She also mentioned the Planting for Food and Jobs Programme as one timely intervention that has since been providing fertilizers to farmers “at almost half-price” every farming season leading to boosted farm yields.

According to the Second Lady, “on December 7, we are voting for 1 Village 1 Dam, we are voting for the teacher training and nursing training allowances that have been restored and we are voting for NABCO so that our children who finish university will get jobs – we are voting for a government that cares for us”.

Meanwhile, the NPP’s Parliamentary Candidate for the Builsa North Constituency, Mr. James Maurice Abakisi who spoke on behalf of his constituents commended government for several projects brought into the area and mentioned particularly that, there were a good number of Senior High and Technical schools already and that the Builsa area had come of age to merit a tertiary school to absorb the thousands of graduating students from the second cycle schools.

When the Second Lady and her entourage made their second stop in Chiana-Asunia by almost 18:45GMT to address a durbar of the chiefs and people, Paramount Chief of the Chiana Traditional area PƐ Ditungdini Adiali Ayagitam III, commended Mrs. Bawumia for her construction of a shea butter/oil extraction plant in the Asunia community for the multitude of rural women in the larger Chiana area engaged in the picking, processing and sale of shea nuts for a living. 

The People of Chiana Waited into the Night

 

PƐ Ditungdini who is also the incoming President of the Upper East Regional House of Chiefs, disclosed that, the Second Lady had additionally put up three of such plants elsewhere in the Upper East Region not for economic reasons but owing to her passion and desire to lift rural women out of poverty. He asked for strict supervision of work at the facility upon installation of machines and also appealed for attractive price quotations for nuts in order to compensate for the labour of pickers.

H.E Hajia Samira ended the day’s tour at the Navro Pio’s palace in Navrongo around 22:00GMT. Here, PƐ Dennis Balinia Adda Asagepare II in his welcome address thanked government for giving his traditional area a fair share of development projects but appealed for the speedy construction of an ultra-modern theatre facility at the Navrongo War Memorial Hospital that was recently handed over to a contractor. He also appealed to the Second Lady to extend a helping hand to several associations of widows within the traditional area to improve their living standards.

The Second Lady promised to help the widows in whatever way she could since such women were often the breadwinners for their children; from feeding to schooling and other responsibilities. She repeated her calls for the retention of the NPP in power so as to further solidify the gains made in development across the sectors. She said education was one critical catalyst for the nation’s rapid development and stressed that, government had completed plans to offer loans to Ghanaian tertiary students without the guarantor scheme in as far as a student was only able to provide a valid Ghana Card.

The Navro Pio Giving His Welcome Address

Upper East Regional Minister and the NPP’s Parliamentary Candidate for the Navrongo Central Constituency in the December general elections, Hon. Tangoba Abayage also addressed the gathering and noted that, government had done enough for the people of Navrongo that it would a bad decision not to renew the mandate of the Nana Addo-led government. She for instance cited the new status conferred on then the UDS Navrongo campus which has become a fully-fledged university under the name; C.K Tedam University for Technology and Applied Sciences, the about 50 million Ghana Cedis Naga-Navrongo road currently under construction and the installation of traffic lights in the township to inject sanity on the streets.

Hon. Tangoba also mentioned the major rehabilitation works ongoing at the Tono Irrigation Scheme, which had never tasted any such magnitude of works close to 40 or so years of its existence, as one big achievement that could not be glossed over. She also gave firm assurances to the Navro Pio and his people that, the theatre project at the hospital will not suffer any setbacks because the funding source, government’s “1 Million US Dollars Per Constituency” was very solid and sound.

Mrs. Bawumia is scheduled to move on similar tours to the Bawku, Zebila, Pusiga, Talensi, Builsa South and other parts of the region before leaving for the North East Region by the weekend.