Oti Region to leverage iron ore for devt

The Oti Region is optimistic about leveraging the iron ore discovery in that part of the country to generate the needed revenue for development.

The Minister for the Oti Region designate, Daniel Machator, has projected that the natural resource, which was in abundance in the pre-colonial days and attracted people from outside Ghana could be the ‘gem’ to transform the region.

He said the sensitisation of market women to see themselves as part of the development process and the effective harnessing of the Kyabobo National Park could help change the narrative.

The former Prisons Officer and the Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Institute of Journalism GIJ), also, expresses the hope to leverage many tourism sites dotted in the region, including the "Breasts Mountain", to bring a dramatic change in the region.

He, however, bemoaned the poor nature of roads leading to these sites which over the years had drained the targeted revenue.

As a first step, the 36-year-old nominee assured the Appointments Committee of Parliament yesterday to help address it.

The fixing of bad roads and promotion of peace and education will be his main focus in the next nine months to end the reign of the ruling government.

Mr Machator, in his attempt to bring the region up to speed, gave an assurance to complete all stalled projects, especially educational infrastructure, to help improve formal education in the area.

On the state of the country's prisons, the nominee said the prisons had become a "human warehouse."

He said instead of it becoming a reformative avenue, the Prisons Service was not living up to its billing because of infrastructural challenges.

Mr Machator assured the committee of engaging the Interior Ministry to review the current budgetary allocation of GH¢ 1.80p feeding fee a day to improve the lives of inmates.

Local government

For his part, the Deputy Minister for Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, Vincent Ekow Assafuah, called for the election of District Chief Executives of local assemblies as a way of signing a social contract between the elected and the people to ensure accountability.

To him, the election should be done on party lines by first amending Articles 243 and 55 of the 1992 Constitution.

The Member of Parliament for Old Tafo in the Ashanti Region promised to assist his minister in designing innovative ways of raising and improving IGF.

Galamsey

Touching on a wide range of issues, the nominee disagreed with the committee that the current government had failed in its attempt to fight the ‘galamsey’ menace, insisting that the government had rolled out some pragmatic policies to fight the menace.

While admitting that there had been a challenge in the fight, the nominee, who is also a lawyer by training, said he would assist his minister in finding a lasting solution to the menace.

LGBTQ+

On his view of the passage of the anti-gay bill into law by Parliament, he said much as he frowned on the act, the law should have made provision for how to incorporate the culprits back into society through reforms rather than prison sentences.