SADA the Savanna Accelerated development Authority was set up to help bridge the the economic gap between the South of Ghana and the North (Savanna région). Less than two years into its operation, it was riddled with corruption, ineptitude and recklessness all in gargantuan proportions. These were serialised by joyfm's Manesseh Awuni as the Sad SADA Saga. The huge embarassment led to the chief exécutive been fired and the Whole setup bein reorganised.
SADA is yet to demostrate to Ghanaians that valuable lessons have been learned from its chequred short history.
Some few months a go SADA was in The news again This time it is investing in energy sector. That in itself is not a bad idea, but is that the most pressing need at the Moment and how many people will be taking out of poverty with that Project.
It does appear to me that either the SADA authorities have no clue about what they are supposed to or they are deliberately being reckless with the tax payers money.
Common sense demands that they find out why there is an economic gap between the SADA Zone and the south in The first place before they think about what can be done to bridge that Gap.
There are several reasons for the widening economic gap between the two climatic zones.
the major ones are colonialism, resources endowment ans climate, yes climate. The colonial powers only wanted the north to ne source of cheap labour for extracting the resources in the south for Export. There was therefore no need to build infrastructure there or to educate the people. After independence attempts habe been made by some government to bridge the gap especially on The educational front secondary schools and Training colleges under Dr Nkrumah and The UDS under Flt Lt Rawlings. But economic structure of the country has not changed that much so the infrastructure gap is still glaring. For example there is no Single industry that employs More than 500 people in The SADA region.
Climate is a factor because as one moves from the Burkinafaso border towards the south, the level of poverty also reduces as the level of rainfall increases. This is so because the rainy months reduces from year round in western south to a little over four months in The upper east Region. How does any one expect farmers to survive the whole year on five months productivitie?
The number of people who are reliant on farming for their livelihood is also very high in The SADA Region. This is understandable becuase the Region has very little alternative livelihood opportunities outside farming.
With This background I was expecting that the first projects that SADA will be undertaking will be the construction of dams, which will enable farmers in The SADA region to be able to produce a little More into the year. This is an effective and quick Way of reducing poverty on a large scale sustainable Basis. Is not surprising that Ghana is importing tomatoes ans other vegetables from Burkinafaso which is even further north? What is that they are getting right that we are getting wrong? The answer is not far,Dams, yes dams,they recognised they have water Problem so they have build a lot of dams that are used dort irrigation during the dry season. I am surprised this common sense eluded the authorities at SADA.
The next expected area of intervention by SADA, would have been The construction of feeder roads to bring The little that is produced into The market. The area I building of factories for processing.
