Residents of Kalbeo in the Bolgatanga Municipality in the Upper East Region are passionately calling on the government especially the municipal Assembly to as a matter of urgency extend a hand of support to the community in all aspects of the economy like roads, health care l, education and dry season farming.
The Assembly man for Kalbeo electoral area, Sonny Ayariga during this year’s Teng-Malgo festival, highlighted the significance of the festival to the development of the area and the unity of the people through the festival.
Teng-Malgo festival was founded in 1993 by chiefs and elders of Kalbeo to foster peace, unity and development and that has attracted attention from people near and afar.
The festival was first celebrated on the occasion of the commissioning of the first clinic in the community and now the clinic is in a deplorable state after thirty two years.
“As I mentioned earlier, it was the day of opening of our old clinic that brought about the Teng- Malgo Festival in 1993 is now in a deplorable state and needed an urgent renovation as nothing can be done in that facility for years now. During the rainy season, the rooms are always full of water because all the roofing is almost gone, if work will serve the community greatly”, Sonny Ayariga said.
On road network, the Assembly man, Sonny Ayariga, said, the nature of the road is adversely affecting residents especially pregnant women in labour and the bad roads is breeding crime where armed robbers takes advantage of the situation to attack and rob residents at dark hours.
“The Kalbeo Community is not far from the regional capital Bolgatanga, however we are lacking so many as far as development is concerned. We have two major roads entering our community from town which are not in a good shape. But we are told by our MP that his office and the government are working around the clock to fix these roads for us. We are grateful for that and cannot wait to see the contractor on site to start work”.
He added “Notwithstanding, access roads and link roads are lacking in our community, I appeal to the assembly planning unit to step into the Kalbeo community and construct access roads for us”.
Agriculture “one cannot talk about food production in the Bolgatanga Municipality and Upper East Region as a whole without mentioning Kalbeo community because we are into both dry season and raining season farming of all crops and vegetable to feed our families and to ensure food security in the country.
Unfortunately, dry season farming in the community is an eyesore due to lack of water or irrigation facility for farmers. Farmers therefore resort to using manpower to duck wilds for short time production of vegetables which is not sustainable”.
“We are therefore appealing to the government through the MP, MCE to help us desilt our only dam in the community known as ‘Akalbeo’ and also known for its possession of all kinds of fishes. By desilting our dam, it will not only help farmers to produce more food staff in the dry season, but it will increase availability and accessibility of fish in our community considering the importance of fish for our health”.
“Also, the use of the dam water for domestic usage and animal consumption is not more there. Gone at the days all the resident of Kalbeo and it adjoining communities will go to the dam site and drive their animal home because there is water there for animal intake is not more the case”.
Potable Drinking Water,
” water they say is life, though the community has many boreholes and community water projects which is not working effectively, and I would like to thank MCE for recently providing me with one borehole. However we need more, we therefore called on the Assembly, NGOs and philanthropist to support the community with more boreholes due to the fest growing of the community’s population”.
Education, “the Ayuusi – Yine Primary and Junior High School is the only public school in the community which is always face with inadequate furniture leading to students sitting on the flood whiles learning which does not ensure quality education as Assembly member I have been doing my part in getting them furniture, but we still need more. Additionally our six-unity classroom block and another three classroom blocks of our primary school which is just across the road need serious renovation for the safety of our children. These blocks which were constructed by the government 30 and 40 years respectively are very weak”.
Electricity, “One may be surprised but the reality is that some residents of the Kalbeo Community still do not have electricity connectivity for so many years. We are appealing to the government through our MCE not to forget about Kalbeo when it comes to rural electrification in the Municipality”.
The festival was a success bringing together the Youth, women groups, cultural troops and other invited personalities in and around the municipality and one message by all speakers is the development gap in the community.