The Upper East Regional Minister, Mr Mark Woyongo, has assured chiefs and people of the Garu Tempane District in the Upper East Region that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) will not need to campaign in the area, since the massive development projects by the government will be enough to convince the people to retain the party in power in 2012. Inaugurating an electrification project at Tariganga in the Gagbiri Traditional area in the Garu Tempane District Mr Mark Woyongo said since the assumption of office, the NDC Government had embarked on major interventions to alleviate the plight of people in the area. He said apart from continuing with the rural electrification programme to ensure that a lot more rural communities were connected to the national grid, the educational as well as the health sector was receiving a major boost in terms of infrastructural development. He said considering the importance of agriculture to the economy and the population involved in farming in the region, the government's intervention in that sector had ensured a bumper-harvest of rice last year and this year looked more promising. He said the government was in addition providing dams, dugouts and boreholes to be used for irrigation farming to ensure farmers were engaged in dry season farming to prevent the youth from migrating to the southern sector in search of jobs. He said under the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), the President's Greening Ghana Initiative and Bullock farming programme was creating jobs, for the youth and pleaded with those agitating for jobs to exercise restraint since the government was doing everything possible to get all to be employed within the next three to four years. The minister in the company of the Member of Parliament for Garu-Tempane and Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Dominic Azumbe Azumah, and the District Chief Executive for Garu-Tempane Mr David Adakudugu, later inaugurated a 6 unit classroom block, office, store and a library at Bulpeilsi, a 3 unit classroom block, office, store and 4 seater KVIP and urinal at Akara and an electrification project at the Karateshie chief's palace. The District Chief Executive for Garu-Tempane, Mr David, Adakudugu, said in pursuance of the assembly's mission of ensuring people enjoyed improved standards of living as well as creating an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive, they were- continuing to collaborate with development partners to provide the needed development. He said since his assumption of office, the assembly, together with some development partners, had been able to construct a 6 unit classroom block, office, store and 6 unit KVIP, urinal and borehole attached at Bulpeilsi. A 3 unit classroom block, office, Store and 4 seater KVIP and urinal and similar ones have been constructed at Nomboko, Kongo, Akara, Aloko and Gaago respectively, adding that the assembly also supplied 6,000 dual desks to schools in the district. “In the area of health, the district chief executive said apart from sponsoring students to study in various health institutions in the country, the assembly had budgeted to construct the new CHIPs compounds across the district with two already completed at Gagbiri and Alokoti. He said the assembly was also supporting medical students and 46 general nursing students to undertake their training after which they would come back to the district to support in providing health care services to the people. "The assembly has also made it a point to provide transportation to cart supplementary feeding products from Tamale to Garu to help the feeding of malnourished and maternal women undergoing care at the various health centres”. Mr Adakudugu said, agriculture, which provided the main source of livelihood for the people continued to engage about 70 per cent of the population. He said the need to supply sufficient fertiliser to the increasing farmer population had been at concern to the assembly since last year's fertiliser which was highly subsidised is marred by incidences of discrimination selectivity and unnecessary hoarding of coupons. He said the government realising the deficiency had subsidised and fertiliser on the open market. Source: The Daily Graphic