The Akulyoo Primary School in the Bongo District of the Upper East Region will soon have its full complement of classrooms as the Assembly on Monday, handed over a site to a contractor for the construction of a three-unit classroom block with ancillary facilities. The contractor for the job is Jovima Enterprise Limited, a Bolgatanga-based contractor.
At a brief ceremony at the school, Bongo District Executive [DCE] Hon. Peter Ayinbisa Ayamga disclosed that the project which is valued at 196,000.00 Ghana Cedis, is to be completed within six months. The school which was established in 2013 had since been ran with only three classrooms and an office. As a result, it could not admit more pupils but with this new project, the DCE hoped many more children from the community could now be enrolled. The school’s current student population is 183.
Hon. Ayamga appealed to community members to give the contractor the needed support to help him complete the project on time while he urged them to also assist the school’s management in safeguarding school property and other belongings. He told them not to politicise the award of the contract or see the school as government’s property stressing that “all of us make up the government, we own the school as a community”.
He gave the assurance that the district’s works engineer and staff from the planning unit will monitor the works from beginning to finish in order to ensure value for money and that, the project is executed according to the specified drawings. He also revealed that a consultant visited the community in the past few days and that very soon, Akulyoo will be hooked onto the national electricity grid.
The Chief of Akulyoo, Naba Asampambire Akaribo speaking on behalf of his community, thanked the Assembly for the project but appealed for a teachers’ quarters for the school since majority of the teachers were commuting from elsewhere to school which consumes contact hours with the students.
From Akulyoo, the DCE and his team of technical staff from the Assembly then headed to Zorkor where a 10-seater pour-flush toilet project to be cited near the Zorkor market, was handed over to a contractor for execution.
Hon. Ayamga said upon its completion, the facility will be handed over to a private citizen to operate on a public-private basis and that individual, will be responsible for servicing and maintaining the facility while paying a percentage of the revenues to the Assembly. This project is pegged at 165,000.00 Ghana Cedis and expected to be completed within three months.
He noted that the citing of the toilet facility would help deal with issues of open defecation in the area while creating jobs for the people. The Assembly plans to fence the toilet facility from allocations in its 2019 budget.
Meanwhile, the DCE disclosed that the Zorkor Market itself needed to be properly planned in order to create enough space for market women, create access for goods-carrying vehicles as well as for rescue missions during emergencies. He said a bill of quantities that has been done estimates that, the Assembly will require 26,000.000 Ghana Cedis for expert services in planning the whole market.
The DCE and his team also stopped at the Namoo Customs and Immigration barrier which is an entry point from Burkina Faso into Ghana. Here, officers called for the tarring of the Namoo-Bongo road which they said, will boost economic activities. The Namoo Health Centre was also visited where staff complained of inadequate space among other challenges. The Zorkor Senior High School was the last point of call and here, it came to light that a 24-unit two-storey classroom complex had been abandoned by the contractor in a long time. The DCE said this act by contractor was unacceptable and that he would summon the contractor for a critical meeting.
Source: Peter Atogewe Wedam (ISD)
