Upper West Regional Minister, Dr. Hafiz Bin Salih
The Upper West Regional Minister, Dr. Hafiz Bin Salih, has instructed all MDCEs (municipal and district) in the area to demonstrate “leadership by example” by remaining in their respective districts and continuing to work there.
“If you are in charge of a district, it behooves you to stay in that district and work. If you are not staying there, you are not worth being a DCE or MCE of that area,” he said.
“As a leader, you must lead by example, and you must live within your jurisdiction. If you cannot do that, please humbly write to the President through me that you don’t want your appointment so we can get a replacement.”
At the Upper West Regional Coordinating Council’s second meeting, which was sponsored by UNICEF and held in Jirapa, Dr. Salih issued the command.
He was reacting to worries expressed by Principal State Attorney Mr. Saeed Abdul-Shakur, who stated that employees of some districts lived in Wa and regularly traveled to their districts for work.
According to him, some employees of the Jirapa Municipality and Nadowli-Kaleo District reside in Wa and spend their days waiting in line for free transportation to their offices at a bus stop on the Wa-Nadowli route.
“Anytime I drive by the bus stop, my heart gets broken by the fact that an average Upper Westner can’t live in Nadowli and work in Nadowli, they cannot live in Jirapa and work in Jirapa,” the Principal State Attorney queried.
“They want to live in Wa, and because their salary cannot take them to work every day from Wa, they now come and stand at a filling station waiting to be a gratuitous passenger to go to work, at what time will you get to work.”
He gave the MDCEs a challenge to fulfill their obligations to make sure that every employee resided and worked in the districts, to set up procedures to monitor when they reported for work, and to take appropriate action against staff members who refused to comply.
Dr. Salih, in the meantime, expressed his satisfaction that the majority of DCEs stated that they were residents of the district and pushed those who were not to move.
Regarding education, the Regional Minister clarified that, in order to facilitate oversight and monitoring, the Government had given 136 motorcycles to each of the 11 district education directorates.
One of the main challenges, according to Upper West Regional Director of Education Mr. Razak Abdul-Korah, is the region’s poor performance on the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
He blamed it on the students’ inability to focus on their education after registering as they believed they would be admitted to a senior high school regardless of their grade.
However, Mr. Abdul-Korah stated that the Ghana Education Service’s leadership was addressing the problem and urged everyone to pitch in to meet the challenge.