Dr. Hafiz Bin Salih, the Upper West Regional Minister has assured the Sissala East Municipality, Sissala West and Wa East Districts that they will benefit from the 35 million Dollar European Union (EU) funded road project in the region.

He said the funding agencies had agreed for the contract to be modified to include some feeder roads in the Sissala areas.

The Minister said this when a five-member delegation including chiefs from the Sissala areas called on him on Wednesday on the outcome of a meeting they held with the Ministers of Road and Highways and Agriculture on the exclusion of the area from the EU/World Bank feeder road project.

The delegation included Zini Kuoro, Pulima Kuoro, President and the Secretary of the Sissala Youth Forum and the Executive Director of Community Development Alliance.

Dr. Bin Salih indicated that a team of technocrats was in the region on the order of the Minister of Roads to assess the roads in the Sissala areas.

The Chiefs and people of the Sissala areas petitioned the President for excluding the area from the EU/WB roads project.

Dr. Bin Salih commended them for adopting a peaceful process to present their grievances saying, “Others would have resorted to violence, and violence does not yield any positive result”.

The Minister said the outcome of the meeting would exonerate him from the allegations that he was involved in the selection of the road and awarding of the contracts.

“… so when this happened, it then dawns on people that I did not play any role in either the selection of the roads or the award of the contracts”, he explained.

The Minister indicated that under his leadership as Regional Minister, no district would be discriminated against in terms of development for the benefit of the people and for his personal development.

Talking on smuggling of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) fertilizer, Dr. Bin Salih said the act tended to soil the hard-won reputation of the region.

He said government was investing billions of Ghana Cedis to subsidise the fertilizers for farmers and yet some miscreants were bent on cashing-in on the intervention.

“We need the support of each one of you to be able to reduce this menace to the barest minimum.

“We have increased the number of security personnel along the border, but it is not everywhere that the security persons can be, and indeed some of them are complicit, they connive with these smugglers to do that”, he said.

The team commended the Regional Minister and the Members of Parliament for the area for their intervention to ensure that the Sissala area was not left out in the project.

They also requested the Minister of Roads and Highways to facilitate the construction of the Wa-Tumu-Bolgatanga road to help facilitate economic activities between the two regions.