The people of Salankpan are elated as the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) constructs the first Junior High School for the community.
The three-unit classroom block will also serve at least five other communities with an estimated population of 14,000 in the Mion Municipal Assembly.
The Chief Executive of GNPC, Mr Kofi Kodua Sarpong on behalf of the corporation also presented a cheque of GHS 36,500 for the purchasing of desks, tables, and chairs for both students and teachers of the school.
“This amount will also cater for other logistics needed to run the school, it is our hope that we can extend more assistance to the communities,” he remarked.
Mr. K.K. Sarpong was on a two-day visit to some districts in the Northern region where the GNPC made several donations and inspected ongoing projects it is sponsoring.
The JHS building is expected to be handover to the community in the coming weeks.
A delighted District Chief Executive of Mion, Mohammed Hashim Abdullah while expressing gratitude to GNPC said, “the edifice when completed will save students the three (3) miles daily walk to and fro Salankpang and the adjoining communities to Sang Sang for junior high school education”.
GNPC inspected classroom blocks with offices under construction at Tolon and Yendi senior high schools.
Mr Kofi Kodua Sarpong also handed over one thousand furniture to the Tolon District Assembly on behalf of the Tolon District Education Directorate.
“This delivery is in fulfillment of a request made by the Regent of Tolon Major Sulemana Abukari during my visit to this region last year, he requested for thousand but GNPC has decided to provide two thousand so what you see today is the first delivery. The second delivery of another thousand furniture will be done soon”, Kofi Kodua Sarpong intimated.
The District Chief Executive of the Tolon District Assembly Balchisu Yakubu said the first batch will be distributed to 12 schools in dire need of furniture.
Appreciating the gesture by the GNPC, she remarked, “we still have forty-eight schools with inadequate furniture, the assembly since I took over has provided furniture to some schools but our challenge is so serious that we still have furniture deficit of 11,000”.
Meanwhile, the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation has provided 120 boreholes to communities in the Northern Region including Zoggu and Tolon in the Nanton and Tolon Districts respectively.
The siting of the boreholes was based on a survey by GNPC on the immediate needs like potable drinking water of some of the communities, which will benefit over ten thousand residents.
In the Nanton District, the Zoggu Basic School also received five hundred dual desks to end the challenges of children kneeling and laying on their bellies to write.
The Chief Executive Officer of GNPC, Mr. Sarpong was installed the “Zoggu Zosimli Na” to wit good friendship chief of the Zoggu Community. An honour done him by the Zoggu Traditional Council as an appreciation to his commitment towards development of the Zoggu Community.
Mr Sarpong told journalists “development must reach every Ghanaian thus the Northern Region must also benefit from proceeds of the company”.
He ended his two-day working visit at the Gbewa Palace, seat of the Overlord of Dagbon where he paid a courtesy call on the King Ya-Na Abukari Mahama II to formerly congratulate him on his successful investiture on January 25, 2019.
He also thanked him giving GNPC land in Savelugu to site an operational center during his reign as the Chief of Savelugu.
He also revealed the GNPC will commence offshore operations in Northern Region.
“We will be commencing offshore production on the Volta Basin soon and this will be preceded by the opening an operations office in Northern Region in April, the region will witness more of these developments from the GNPC”.
By Zubaida Ismail | 3news.com