The Upper West Regional Minister, Charles Lwanga Puozuing, broke ground on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, for the first technical and vocational institute in the Wa West District's eastern corridor at Ga, delivering on a promise President John Dramani Mahama made on the campaign trail in 2020.

The facility is being pitched as more than bricks and mortar. For the NDC government, it’s a push to make skills training local, practical, and owned by the communities it’s meant to serve.

“This is a promise fulfilled by the NDC government,” Puozuing said at the ceremony.

He framed the project as part of a broader shift toward skills training that gives young people a shot at being “self-employed, employable, and employed".

While Wa West’s district capital, Wechiau, now has a government-absorbed technical institute, the eastern corridor has neither a TVET school nor a single second-cycle institution.

For families already stretched by poverty, sending children outside the district has been financially out of reach.

The groundbreaking move closes a loop that began four years ago, when chiefs and residents appealed to then-candidate Mahama to establish a TVET school if elected.

The NDC lost in 2020, but the request resurfaced in 2024, and John Mahama agreed. Excitement ran high as Puozuing urged chiefs and queen mothers to take ownership.

“It is fulfilling when people and communities own projects. That makes development meaningful to all of us,” he said.

Wa West MP Peter Lanchene Toobu, a retired police superintendent, welcomed the policy shift toward technical education. He said there are plans to link the new school with foreign TVET institutions to broaden students’ skills and exposure.

Chief of Ga, Naa Tungbani Tibuorataa, welcomed the project through a statement read by Naa Mumuni Latif but flagged lingering gaps: deplorable roads, inadequate classrooms, and a lack of teaching aids.

Consultants ANQS Consortium Limited outlined the full scope of seven facilities, including a dormitory, an administration block, a home economics centre, an 18-unit classroom block, a workshop, teachers’ quarters, a dining hall and a kitchen.

Each will be handled by a different contractor, with ANQS overseeing delivery. Wa West District Chief Executive Richard Wullo called it one of the largest coordinated infrastructure pushes in the district this year.

For many in the eastern corridor, it’s a long-awaited step toward keeping skills and opportunities closer to home