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Rice farmers take over abandoned fuel stations at Navorongo
Almost all the fuel stations dotted between Navrongo and Paga, a border town in the Upper East Region have been used as drying and bagging grounds for rice. Paga is a border town of a distance of seven kilometres from Navrongo.
All these fuel stations were built at the time Ghana’s fuel was cheap and so building a fuel station close to a border town could aid a fuel dealer smuggle fuel out of Ghana to make more money.
The fuel price in Ghana is now at par or higher than the fuel in neighbouring countries so fuel smuggling has come to a stop at border towns.
Rice farmers in the Fumbisi valleys in the Builsa South District, farmers at the Tono Irrigation Dam of the Upper East Region, other valleys within the Kasena-Nankana Municipality and the overseas areas of the West Mamprusi Municipality of the North East Region sell the rice to buyers who then rent these abandoned fuel stations for drying and bagging.
To some extent this creates employment for women and the youth who are employed to dry, winnow, bag and load the bags into vehicles for the milling centres in the southern sector of Ghana.
One can count over 20 fuel stations between Navrongo and Paga Border a distance of about seven kilometres and almost all these fuel stations have been rented for the drying and bagging of rice.
FROM PETER GBAMBILA, NAVRONGO.
The Member of Parliament for Nsawam Adoagyiri, Frank Annoh Dompreh, has expressed concern over delays in the release of the District Assemblies Common Fund, warning that the situation is stalling development across the country.
On his facebook page, he described as a matter of urgent national importance, the Minority Chief Whip pointed to what he sees as a growing crisis of unpaid contractors, abandoned projects, and halted infrastructure works in many districts.
He noted that several communities are grappling with half completed schools, unfinished health facilities, abandoned markets, deteriorating roads, and stalled sanitation projects.
According to him, many contractors who have executed projects for district assemblies have not been paid, forcing some construction firms to demobilise from sites while workers lose their jobs.
He stressed that the District Assemblies Common Fund is not a discretionary allocation but a constitutional requirement under Article 252 of the 1992 Constitution, intended to support development at the local level.
In his view, years of delayed releases and accumulated arrears have weakened district development financing and disrupted projects meant to improve living conditions in communities.
He further argued that some payments made in recent years were largely the settlement of old debts rather than funding for new or ongoing projects, a situation he believes has affected contractor confidence and local economic activity.
He described the issue as more than a budgetary challenge, characterising it as a development emergency and a governance concern.
He therefore urged the appropriate authorities to pay outstanding DACF arrears, settle contractors who have completed their work, and ensure that transfers to districts are automatic and predictable.
He maintained that decentralisation can only succeed when district assemblies receive adequate and timely funding to carry out development projects.
He emphasised that stalled projects directly affect ordinary citizens, since they rely on such infrastructure for education, healthcare, transportation, sanitation, and economic activities.
He called for renewed attention to grassroots development, insisting that national progress should not be concentrated only in major cities but extended to all communities.
By: Jacob Aggrey
Richard Appiah, the footballer who killed two children and stored part of their bodies in a fridge at Abesim in the Bono Region in 2021 has been handed a lifetime sentence.
This was after a five member panel of judges at the Accra High Court returned a verdict of guilty against the convict.
Appiah, 32, also a draughtsman would spend the rest of his life in prison after he was convicted of murder.
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BY MALIK SULLEMANA
