COMPLETED SOCO PROJECTS TO BE COMMISSIONED IN KNWD SOON 21st MARCH, 2024

The Kassena-Nankana West District in the Upper East Region is set to take over and commission some 12 completed projects in the coming weeks, for use by beneficiary communities under the Gulf of Guinea Northern Regions Social Cohesive Project (SOCO). The Assembly back in November 2023, handed over sites to contractors for the construction of various projects under SOCO, following successful community engagements and procurement processes.

SOCO, a 150 million US Dollar credit facility from the World Bank,  basically seeks to improve the regional collaboration, socio-economic and climate resilience of border-zone communities in the target northern regions of the Gulf of Guinea countries, including Ghana, that are exposed to conflict and climate risks.

 Hon. Ataogye, DCE
District Chief Executive (DCE), Hon. Gerard Ataogye who disclosed this in an interview with the Information Services Department, this Thursday afternoon said of the total number, 10 were already completed and ready for handing over while the remainder of two (2), were each over 95 percent complete. He revealed that the projects included market stalls in Sirigu and in Katiu, a Community Health Planning Service (CHPS) compound in Kandiga, bridges in Gonum and in Gwenia, a water system in Nabaango, completion of a new butcher shop at the Paga new market and extension of the Nakolo Health Centre among others.

Also among these SOCO projects include a community centre in Kayoro, completion of add-on structures at the Kanania CHPS compound and some four solar-mechanised water boreholes to aid dry season vegetable farming in the Kayilo, Biba, Navem and Kachonno communities.

The KAYORO Community Centre

According to the DCE, the SOCO project is unique in its approach to the provision projects to beneficiary communities in that, it uses the bottom-up approach where communities were sensitized to list their own priority projects and placing them on a scale of preference where the most-pressing of all, was eventually picked, agreed upon and then works  kick in. He added that, each project enclave had community project implementations committees and community facilitators whose mandate was to help monitor the works and also ensure that, the contractors sourced labour and other local job-hands from the communities.

 

Hon. Ataogye allayed the fears of other communities in the district yet to benefit from the SOCO Project explaining that, it is a five-year project which had just witnessed the first roll out and that with time, every deserving community will receive its due share of projects at their own choosing.

Market Stall @ KATIU Market

Over the past one month, the DCE led a SOCO monitoring team from the Assembly that spent several days moving across the district to all SOCO project sites during which, engagements were held with contractors and the community leaderships regarding progress of work, challenges encountered in the execution of works and other matters arising out of the implementation process. 

The DCE held, that the regular monitoring and site meetings were very necessary as that created the platform for settling of differences between the contractors and the communities as well as, ensuring that the projects were being constructed according to specifications and delivery schedules. He noted that one issue that came up was hitches in processing the payments for some of the community facilitators as a few of them had variations in their names as they appeared on the Ghana Card and other documentations but that, this has since been sorted out.

 

 

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