The Zongo Development Fund (ZoDF) has kick-started the commissioning of 119 projects fully completed in various Zongo communities in the country. The projects include Olympic-size Astro Turfs, six-unit classroom blocks, provision of furniture, 10-seater institutional toilet facilities, drainage systems, roads and mechanised water systems.
Speaking at Tolon in the Northern Region, Dr S.K. Frimpong, a Technical Economic Advisor at the Vice President’s office, entreated Ghanaians to adopt good maintenance culture.
Tolon is one of the beneficiary communities of the six-unit-classroom block with furniture from the ZoDF projects.
Dr Frimpong, in the company of Alhaji Baba Sadiq Yakubu, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ZoDF, handed over the keys to a six-unit classroom block to the Tolon District Chief Executive (DCE), Hajia Balchisu Yakubu.
Dr Frimpong explained that development is not about building new facilities; maintaining old projects is essential to growth. “If we build new projects, furnish them, and we neglect the maintenance of old ones, there will be no progress. As citizens, let’s take actions necessary for retaining all government projects to achieve its maximum useful life,” he said.
The DCE for Tolon, on behalf of the people, expressed her people’s gratitude to the ZoDF and government for putting up the six-unit classroom block for the people.
She added that the completion and handing over of the facility were timely as it would serve the educational needs of the people in the community and help reduce the spread of Covid-19 by easing congestion in the classrooms. She appealed to the teachers and authorities of the school to manage the facility well to encourage the ZoDF and government to do more.
The CEO of the ZoDF, Alhaji Arafat Sulemana Abdulai, began the nation-wide commissioning with the handing-over of a state-of-art school gate and security post for the Accra Girls Senior High School (SHS), in the Ayawaso North Municipality, in Accra. The projects, which the Fund fully finances, include the construction and furnishing of basic and second cycle educational institutions; institutional and public places of convenience; fully equipped ICT Centres, libraries and assembly halls.
Some 16 model SHS schools are expected to be constructed in each of the 16 regions. The model schools would have fully equipped libraries, laboratories, recreational facilities and dormitories. The Fund would also increase its support for brilliant but needy students under the scholarship grant and focus more on building the entrepreneurial skills of women and the youth in Zongo communities.