The DCE made the call in his address at the district’s celebration of the 61st Anniversary of Ghana’s independence under the theme: “Ghana Beyond Aid”.

The DCE noted that the theme was very apt because, effective mobilisation and leveraging of Ghana’s domestic savings and revenues could indeed, wean the country off donor funding and grants, which often come with strings limiting the scope of fund utilisation.

This therefore makes it impossible for Government to spend on other equally important sectors of the economy with such donor funding.

The DCE observed that Ghana could even achieve more development independence through effective financial inclusion with credit services and savings for all, especially women. This he said, should be anchored on efficiency and accountability in the use of public resources.

Mr. Ayamga said the goal of government was to strengthen Ghana’s position as a magnet for investment in productive ventures to create jobs for the youth. He said for a start, the first year of the NPP government had witnessed the stabilisation of the macro-economy and real growth in most sectors of the economy.

Additionally, he said, there were also deliberate programmes to make the business and private sectors very conducive, invest in a health system that caters for all, provide quality teachers for an improved school system and provide good drinking water for the populace among others.

According to him, human resource development is one important area that government’s development agenda focuses on. In this regard, substantial amounts of resources including human, physical and financial have been devoted to the education sector in order to ensure that the country produces the requisite human resource to man its economy.

He said for instance the Free Senior High School Policy and the restoration of teacher-trainee and nursing-trainee allowances just to mention a few, were all geared towards expanding the human resource base of the country.

He disclosed that the Free SHS Programme in 2018 alone, had a total enrollment for the Gowrie SHS, the Bongo SHS and Zorkor SHS standing at 1,747 students. These numbers are expected to go further up in the coming years because government plans to pump more funds into the programme.

On hygiene and sanitation, Mr Ayamga indicated that there are efforts in the district to improve on sanitation, and revealed that one sure intervention to curb the situation was the implementation of Community-Led Total Sanitation [CLTS] programme.

The main objective of the CLTS he stated, was to improve hygiene in the communities and make the entire district an open-defecation-free [ODF] zone by 2019.

He said through the Assembly’s efforts and those of its partners, the UNICEF had already declared about 29 communities as ODF while many more had been triggered to follow suit. He appealed to the chiefs and Honourable Assembly Members to collaborate with the Assembly’s Environmental Health Unit to make the intervention a success.

The DCE paid glowing tribute to the country’s forebearers for their selfless contributions to Ghana’s development through the decades and charged the young school children to emulate the shining examples of “our fore fathers” whose toil and bloodshed had made Ghana what she had become today.

A total of 16 Primary Schools, 27 Junior High Schools and nine Senior High Schools as well as some school cadet corps and civil society organisations took part in the march past. Certificates were presented to some of the schools that excelled in the marching drills. They included Bongo SHS which topped the SHSs category, St. Joachim’s R/C Academy of Kuyelungu emerging first in the Junior High Schools bracket while St. Anne’s R/C Primary was adjudged the best for the Primary Schools section.