She said communities were benefiting from projects that directly addressed their felt needs, including bridges that improve access to health and education facilities, income-generating support for community-based groups.
“What we have realised is that SOCO projects are not very large, but they are projects that touch the hearts of the community in a way that actually addresses the felt needs of the communities,” Madam Agyei noted.
She said this in Wa, at the weekend during an orientation for the newly sworn-in Regional Ministers, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MDCEs) and Coordinating Directors from the Upper West and Savannah Regions on the SOCO project.
All eleven Municipalities and Districts in the Upper West Region and four Municipalities and Districts in the Savannah Region are benefiting from the SOCO project.
Madam Agyei explained that at its mid-term stage, the five-year project has implemented about 1,240 sub-projects across participating districts.
Beyond infrastructure, the SOCO project was supporting about 1,700 community-based interest groups with small grants to expand their economic activities and promoting youth engagement and social cohesion through initiatives such as “Kick for Peace.”
Madam Agyei indicated that they valued quality and expediency in the delivery of SOCO sub-projects and that 18 contracts had been terminated in the Upper West Region alone due to changes in scope or non-performance by contractors.
Commenting on the culvert constructed under the SOCO project at Zingu in the Wa Municipality, which had been washed off by flood waters twice, she said it was due to a technical design deficit and that they were redesigning it to be constructed under the project’s third cycle.
Mr Charles Lwanga Puozuing, the Upper West Regional Minister, recognised the impact of the SOCO project on the livelihoods of the people, including their economic development and promotion of peaceful co-existence.
He said Regional Ministers of the project’s six beneficiary regions – Upper West, Northern, Savannah, North East, Upper East and Oti Regions – were advocating the inclusion of all Districts in those regions in the SOCO project.
Currently, only 48 out of the 64 districts in those six regions were benefiting from the project.
Mr Salisu Be-Awuribe Issifu, the Savannah Regional Minister, urged all stakeholders involved in the implementation of the SOCO project “to put their minds and wills on the project to get it to succeed.”
“It is something that we want to make sure that we drive the maximum output out of whatever is envisioned,” he stated.
Mr Be-Awuribe said though they had achieved a remarkable rate of its implementation, there was still much more to be done.
GNA
