On the Occasion of 6th March Celebration in the Wa East District,  the District Chief Executive of the Area,  Hon. Ewurah Kandia has highlighted on several challenges affecting the District,  he also noted that there are some developments affecting the Education Sector in his District.

The DCE,  Noted that Teacher absenteeism was high,  Teachers travelling to study or further their education without permission was an issue of concern,  he also bemoaned the desire of teachers to stay outside the district whilst working.

Full Statement at the 65th Anniversary

KEYNOTE ADDRESS DELIVERED BY THE DISTRICT CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF WA EAST DISTRICT ASSEMBLY, HON. DR. EWURAH SULEMAN KANDIA MAHAMA ON THE OCCASION OF THE 65TH INDEPENDENCE ANNIVERSARY ON SUNDAY, MARCH 6, 2022 AT THE FUNSI TOWN PARK, FUNSI.

The M.C,
The Paramount Chief, Bulenga Traditional Area,
The Paramount Chief, Manwe Traditional Area,
Our Revered Traditional Authorities and Sectional Heads from Funsi,
Hon. Assembly Members Present,
The District Co-ordinating Director and staff,
Heads of Department, Institutions and Agencies,
The District Director of Education
Commanders of the Security Services,
Development Partners
Our Hard Working Teachers,
My Dear Students and School Children,
Parents and Guardians here present,
Political Parties here present,
Organized Groups Present,
Our Friends from the Media,
Distinguish Invited Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is my greatest pleasure and honour to be associated with the celebration of Ghana’s 65th Independence Anniversary in my capacity as the Chief Executive of our dear District.
Distinguish Ladies and Gentlemen, let me first and foremost thank the good people of Funsi for accepting to host this memorable occasion, and also the warm hospitality accorded our dignitaries, we are most grateful.
Today’s event brings into sharp focus the historic feat of achieving independence and a nation-status by our fore-fathers. They sacrificed their blood and toiled to secure us freedom from oppressors’ rule and offered us the opportunity to determine our destiny as a people. I therefore crave the indulgence of all here in gathered to join me, and the rest of Ghana to salute our gallant forefathers who fought to achieve independence for us, which has made it possible for you and I to live in freedom today.
Our revered Traditional Authorities, if you could recollect, we could not openly celebrate the 64th Independence Anniversary last year, as a result of the novel Corona Virus pandemic, which took the world by surprise. Despites all our collective efforts as a nation and the robust measures put in place by government to conquer the Corona Virus, it is still present with us. we need to intensify and observe all the COVID-19 Safety protocols, that is, wear nose marks, wash our hands with clean running water with soap and don’t forget to be vaccinated. In line with the strict observation of these safety protocols, there is a directive to hold very short ceremonies to commemorates the 65th independence day celebration across the country so as to not jeopardized our lives in the wake of the Corona Virus pandemic.
Distinguish Guest, the significance of the National Independence day cannot be overemphasize. It is an official state holiday for the citizens of Ghana both within and in the diaspora to honour and celebrate the heroes of Ghana who led the country to attain its independence. The independence day is also a remembrance day that marks the declaration of Ghanaian independence from the British colonial rule. On the 6 March 1957 President Dr. Kwame Nkrumah declared to the people of Ghana about their freedom. He added that, “the African people are capable of managing their own affairs and that Ghana our beloved country is free forever”.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the theme for our celebration, “Working Together, Bouncing Back Better” is very appropriate and timely following the numerous successes that have been chalked in all spheres of life as a nation. I am left with no option than to say that the theme captured the mood and direction of the nation towards our quest to wane ourselves off from the syndrome of dependence on others for economic self – sufficiency, which our fore-fathers fought and won for us. It would therefore not have come at a better time than now.

Despite our cultural, ethnic, religious, political, emotional and whatever considerations, we need to be working together as we have a common destiny in order for us to get to the Promised Land. Development and prosperity stride in an environment where there is peace, tranquility and harmony. It is on the strength of this, that I entreat all of us to jealously guard and protect the fragile peace we are currently enjoying in the District. Our security is a shared responsibility, so we all have to take full responsibility of our personal security by reporting to the security agencies of people with suspicious characters found within our communities, this way residents will be safe to go about their businesses as expected of them.

The devastating effects of COVID-19, which affected the global economy of which Ghana is not an exception, can only be reversed or improved by concerted effort from every Ghanaian wherever you may find yourself. The known traditional sources of funding (i.e, Loans and Grants/Donor support) for our development continue to dwindle and are no longer sustainable going forward. This leaves us with the only choice of Internally Generated Funds (IGF) to carry out our numerous development projects and programmes. While nationally, Ghana is considering the introduction of Electronic transaction Levey (E-Levey) as one of the innovative ways of expanding our domestic tax network, which is worthy of our support, We at the district level need to also intensify and improved upon mobilization of internally or local resources to support development. We have to be very innovative and creative in our drive to rake in the needed locally generated revenue be it fines, rates, fees and Licenses among others. The Wa East District, under my leadership would leave no stone unturned in the collection of these taxes mention above. I wish to use this opportunity to call on our chiefs and traditional authorities here present and indeed the citizenry of our beloved district to support me and the staff of the Assembly to carry through this activity this year. The days of no payments of tax by natives are over. Let us Work Together and Bounce Back Better with more resources for more development to uplift the status of Wa East District from the deprived to a prosperous one in the not distance future.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, in the educational sector the District is performing creditably well and we need to sustain our efforts and strategies for better results. the Assembly over the years, have been implementing numerous interventions initiated by central governments in order to improve upon the quality of education in the District. They include the following:
The massive construction of classroom infrastructure to eliminate schools under trees, in order to create a conducive environment for teaching and learning,
The increase in the capitation grant,
Free Education for all basic and second cycle school children
The retargeting and expansion of the Ghana School Feeding Programme to cover many of our schools,
Provision of teachers accommodation in some selected schools,
Support to teacher trainees in the Training Colleges as a motivation for them to return to the District to improve teacher – pupil ratio, just to mention but a few.
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, to complement the effort of Assembly to get education move on smoothly in the District, the Bulenga Area Council donated fifty (50) pieces of furniture to some schools within its catchment area to help ease the furniture burden of those schools. I therefore urge its sister Funsi Area Council to emulate the shining example of Bulenga Area Council, and get some kind of support for schools around the Funsi belt.
The Hon. Member of Parliament, in collaboration with the District Assembly also donated a total of One Hundred and Forty (140) pieces of Dual-desk furniture to schools in some Seven (7) selected Communities with each beneficiary school receiving Twenty (20) pieces of the Dual desk furniture. The communities are: Funsi, Manwe, Bulenga, Kunyabin, Baayiri, Jeyiri and Loggu.

Let me once again appeal to communities and schools to own, and take good care of these facilities provided, in order to prolong their life span for the benefit of our Children.
Our revered Traditional Authorities, Education constitute the bedrock of sustainable development, as it unearths the individual’s potentials for sequential growth and development to actualize those talents. As part of the Assembly’s core mandate to promote and facilitate quality basic education for all, we provided assorted foodstuffs to motivate the BECE Candidates across the four Examination centres in the District, primarily, to make them stay comfortable, and write the 2021 Basic Education Certificate Examination. Also, the Hon. Member of Parliament for Wa East, in collaboration with the District Assembly provided mathematically sets to support the Candidates to write their examination well.
Happily, I can proudly announce that we are currently reaping the fruits of the interventions being rolled out, as there is remarkable improvement in education in the District especially at the Basic level. Since 2015, the Wa East District has been topping the region in BECE performance. In 2020, the District performance in the BECE examination was 61%, which was still the best in the region. Out of 1,034 candidates, comprising 599 males and 435 females. The best candidate for boys was 12 whilst that of girls was 15. I say Kudos to our education managers.
It is my favored hope that with all the interventions we put in, the yet to be release 2021 BECE results would be better and thus consolidate our ranking at both the regional and National levels.
The Assembly again supported the District Directorate of Education to successfully celebrate ‘My First Day at School’. This is an annual event aimed at welcoming and motivating pupils who are starting schooling for the first time. This gesture is part of efforts to get all children of school going age in school.
Our Hardworking Teachers, whilst calling on all hands on deck to improve upon the educational standards in the district to enable us compete favourably with some of the well-endowed schools in the country, there are some critical milestones you as major stakeholders would have to reflect on. include:
Teacher absenteeism
Abuse of alcohol and drugs by teachers
Pursuing academic programmes or courses without official approval which in most cases lead to the abandonment of the pupils in classrooms without a teacher.
Less contact hours with pupils by Teachers because they are engaged in their personal businesses other than teaching.
Lack of commitment to work
Marks/grades for Sex
Lateness to school
Refusal of teachers to stay in their school communities, in some cases even when teacher quarters are provided.
Distinguish Ladies and Gentlemen, I believe that if these issues are addressed by you yourselves by simply turning over a new leaf, which I know you can, half of the problem would have been resolved.
On the other hand, let me also acknowledge with gratitude the efforts of our hardworking teachers who despite general challenges are working very hard day and night to achieve results. I wholly appreciate your efforts.
Let me assure all of you that, my doors are widely opened to you both as individuals and organizations for constructive criticisms. You are always welcome to my office.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I want to take this space to thank you all for availing yourself to take part in the parade to commemorate 65th Independence day celebrations. My special appreciation goes to our cherished students and school pupils who are gorgeously dress and displayed their matching skills. Our security detachment and contingents who are also available and showed their mastery of what they have be doing best. All the groups and associations ably represented on the parade congratulations to you. With your cooperation we went through the match pass without any problem and hindrance and may the best team win even though you are all winners as I observed during the Match pass.
Distinguish Guest, it is also important that I bring to your notice that from this year on the venue of the independence day celebrations would no longer be celebrated at the district Capital only but would be on rotational basis from one zone to the other within the district. In this regards, our 2023 District Independence Day parade would be held at a Community within the Bulenga Area Council. We would do the necessary consultations with the traditional authorities in that area to come out with the host community in the near future.
This is to allow all people from all corners of our district feel the importance of the celebrations of the Independence Day. Also, this would be in tandem with the resolve of the President of the Republic of Ghana, His Excellency, Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo to host the celebrations in every region of the country and this is the reason why today, the 65th National Independence Day celebrations is held in Cape Coast, the capital of the Central Region of Ghana.
Ladies and Gentlemen, as the warm season is fast approaching, I wish to urge our citizens to be wary of the devastating impact of Cerebro Spinal Maningitis if we don’t have enough requisite information on it. Permit me to share some background information on Cerebro Spinal Meningitis (CSM).
The Meningitis season starts from October to March, sometimes it comes around May to June. Some areas that stretches across Nadowli, Lawra, Jirapa, Nandom as well as across Burkina Faso were referred to as meningitis belt, but now it affects almost every part of the region. So I wish to advice residents to stay in well ventilated areas in order not to contract CSM and also avoid overcrowded areas
On this note, I thank you all and wish you a Happy 65th Independence Day.

Long Live Wa East District.
Long Live Mother Ghana.
Thank you.

Source: Upperwestmedia.net