Naa Seidu Braimah, a Council of State Member in the Upper West Region has called on members of the district assemblies to work in unison, to provide the needed development projects for the people to improve their living conditions.
He said even though it is envisaged that district assemblies are non-partisan, as a human institution choices on political parties are inevitable.
He urged them to always sacrifice their political and individual interests for the benefit of the people.
Naa Braimah, who is also the Chief of Gulli in the Wa Paramountcy appealed to heads of departments in the districts to bring their skills, experiences and expertise to bear and effect positive change on the living conditions of the people.
The Gulli Naa was addressing members of the Sissala West and Sissala East District Assemblies at separate meetings, during their 2nd ordinary sessions at Gwollu and Tumu respectively.
The Council of State Member accompanied the Upper West Regional Minister Mr. Mahmud Khalid to the two districts, to learn of their challenges, to enable him to inform government about the development needs and aspirations of the people.
Naa Braimah expressed disappointment at the performance of students at the Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE) in the Region and urged stakeholders in education to address the trend.
"If we allow this poor performance to continue, the future of the people in the districts will be gloomy, and development of the economy will be in shambles," Naa Braimah said.
Mr. Khalid said accelerated improvement of basic facilities in education, health and agriculture as well as the provision of potable water and other social amenities in rural communities could be possible, if district assemblies could plan properly and generate substantial portion of their funds from internal sources.
"There is the need for district assemblies to examine critically challenges associated with revenue generation, and find solutions that can lead to improvement in their revenue performance," he said.
Mr. Khalid appealed to members of the Sissala West District Assembly to let the 361,575.51 Ghana Cedis it had received as its share of the District Development Fund for 2009 benefit the people.
He said the shooting incident at Gwollu on August 11, 2009 and the highway armed robbery attack on the committee set up to investigate the incident, and other similar attacks in recent times in the area were of great concern to the Regional Coordinating Council.
Mr. Khalid announced that police patrols on major roads would be implemented in the Region and appealed to the people for their support to bring the situation under control, by providing vital information on the activities of suspicious persons in the area to the security agencies.