Govt will not turn back on Volta Region — Prez

President John Dramani Mahama has assured the people of the Volta Region that the government will never turn its back on the region.

To give meaning to the promise, he said priority had been placed on development projects in the region.

Speaking at the grand durbar to climax the celebration of this year’s Hogbetsotso Festival of the chiefs and people of the Anlo State last Saturday, the President said he appreciated the way the people of the Volta Region had stood solidly behind him as President and the NDC government even in the face of the difficult times that the government had encountered in the last two years.

The annual Hogbetsotso Festival, the 52nd in the series, was marked with pomp.

President Mahama urged the people to continue supporting  the government even as it moved to implement many more development projects in the region.

History of Hogbetsotso 

The festival is celebrated to mark the historic movement of the Anlo people from Notsie in Togo to their present location. 

History has it that the early kings of Notsie ruled well until the tenure of King Agorkoli before  the middle of the 16th Century. 

King Agorkoli ruled with iron fists, and set unattainable tasks for his people, forcing various groups under his kingdom, including the Anlos, to migrate. 

Today, the festival is used to reflect on the progress and failures of the Anlo State and plan strategies to accelerate the development of the people.

The Hogbetsotso Festival, the President said, was worth celebrating, especially taking into consideration the contributions of Anlos to the development of Ghana, especially in the area of education.

Specific projects

President Mahama mentioned some of the projects that had taken place in the Volta Region, as well as ongoing ones and those in the pipeline, and indicated that the future of the region looked even brighter.

The development projects, he mentioned were in the areas of education, water, electricity, agriculture, roads among others.

For instance, he said 400 communities, many of them in the Anlo area, were being connected to the national grid, while water projects had been built in many communities mentioning the Adidome water treatment plant as an example.

On roads, he said work on the Adomi Bridge was expected to be completed next year and appealed to the people of the region to maintain the patience as work was expedited on the project.

In the interim, he stated that the government was working on the Adaklu road as an alternative road pending the completion of the bridge.

The six cocoa-growing areas in the region have also been selected to benefit from the cocoa roads project, which will begin this month,  while the hitches surrounding the Eastern Corridor road are being solved to ensure the completion of work by 2016.

The President said to bolster economic activities in the Anlo area, the National Development Planning Commission ( NDPC) was working quickly to ensure that the Keta Basin Development Authority was passed into law.

Diseases

He urged the people to keep a clean environment to avoid being infected with cholera.

The President also touched on Ebola and said the government was doing its best to ensure Ghana did not record any case.

Awoamefia

The Awoemefia of the Anlo State, Torgbi Sri III, said he and his people appreciated the efforts of the government in addressing the infrastructure and socio-economic needs of the people, especially the construction of the Atorkor sea defence project, the third phase of which had just been completed, and prayed that the fourth phase would start soon.

That notwithstanding, he appealed for the completion of the various GETFund projects in junior and senior high schools in the Anlo State.

Torgbi Sri also called for action to be taken on the fish-landing sites that were promised many years ago.