Leverage SADA’s expertise to implement district industrialisation policy
The Coalition of Civil Society Organisations (CCSOs) in the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) zone have advised the government to use the authority’s master plan to implement its district industrialisation programme (DIP) in the zone.
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That, it said, would help save the government and the country as a whole the cost of impact assessment and project locations under the DIP, while ensuring that the enormous skills and expertise at the authority were properly utilised.
The Executive Secretary of the coalition, Mr Bismark Adongo Ayorogo, told the Daily Graphic that the SADA master plan, particularly the agriculture-led transformation plan, was a product of broad-based consultation which had adequately and clearly defined the transformational agenda of the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone (NSEZ).
If followed through, Mr Adongo said, the plan could help the new administration achieve its proposed one village, one dam and one district, one factory policies without any hindrances.
He said the plan could also transform the northern savannah area into a place of opportunities for all Ghanaians, particularly the women and girls in the ‘kayayei’ business.
“It can also halt and reverse Ghana’s declining agriculture sector and quicken Ghana’s steps towards achieving six per cent growth rate of agriculture as required of all African countries under the Maputo Declaration, and to further the objectives of the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP),” he stated.
“We, therefore, entreat the new administration to demonstrate transformational leadership by reaffirming its commitment to the SADA Master Plan,” he added.
Public investments into NSEZ
Mr Adongo also pointed out that only 15.6 per cent of a total of eight million hectares of arable land was under cultivation in NSEZ, and that all existing irrigation facilities in NSEZ currently operated only one-third of their capacity and irrigating less than one per cent of the area under cultivation.
He, therefore, urged the government to improve upon the existing irrigation facilities to operate at full capacity.
“As a prelude to the implementation of the proposed One Village, One Dam Policy, we urge the government to begin improving existing irrigation facilities to operate at full capacity and work towards irrigating at least 25 per cent of the eight million hectares in its first year in office,” he noted.
He said between 1992 and 2013, total public investment in the whole of the northern savannah areas was less than one per cent, which made it difficult to realise the needed levels of growth and transformation.
The executive secretary, therefore, urged the new government to increase public investment in the northern savannah to at least 10 per cent within its four years in office.
He said the government must respect the SADA law passed by Parliament in 2010 by making budgetary allocation of at least GH¢54 million to SADA in its first Budget Statement, as well as introduce levies on all non-petroleum imports as part of efforts made in mobilising resources for the One Constituency, $1 million to finance development programmes in the northern savannah zone.
“Successive governments have over the years not done enough to marshal the required political will to equitably allocate national resources to transform the area which is often being described as Ghana’s sleeping giant and untapped economic reservoir. Evidence of this is seen in the past government’s failure to adequately resource institutions mandated to transform the area into wealth and prosperity for al”l, he said.
Revamp defunct factories
Mr Adongo also urged the government to demonstrate its commitment to its proposed one district, one factory policy by revamping all defunct factories in the country before setting up new ones.
He said particularly, agro-based industries such as the Northern Star Tomato Factory, the Bolgatanga Rice Mill and the Meat Factory have to be revamped as early signals and a show of good faith.
Proposed restructuring of SADA
He said the coalition also welcomed the proposal by the Akufo-Addo-led administration to restructure SADA.
“For us as a coalition, restructuring should focus on retrieving alleged misappropriation and mismanagement of funds under the old leadership of SADA, but not change of name and a shrink in geographical coverage,” he explained.