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Some stakeholders in the northern part of the Western Region, have told Citi News  that the need for the region to be split to have a Western North Region is known negotiable.

According to them, the factors underpinning the request are valid enough, and that the people in the northern part of the region have had to suffer for long, saying the only the problem could be addressed, is for a new region to be created.

The nine Member Commission of Enquiry collating views on the creation of new regions, took its consultative exercise to the Sefwi Wiawso Municipality, where the views of stakeholders from the Akontombra, Bodi, Sewfi Juabeso and Sefwi Wiaso districts were sought. 

The demand for the split was in those areas, was so intense with news jingles and other forms of commercial advertisement being aired on some radio stations there.

Flyers and stickers have also been pasted on available spaces with banners erected in populated areas in Sefwi and other communities.

At the forum held on Saturday December 16, a midwife, Mary Araba Aggrey, recounted how she lost a mother and her baby due to the difficulty for health workers in the northern part of the region to access the regional referral hospital at Sekondi.

She narrated to Citi News that “A woman delivers at 24 weeks. That is pre-term delivery. We have incubators alright, but there are other things that we need to give to the baby so it lives, and because we are not having these things, the baby should be transferred to Takoradi or Kumasi. Along the line, we lose the baby. At times mothers may be bleeding, and we have to transfer them. But you see, nobody should deliver and die.”

Mrs. Aggrey, who is also a women’s advocate, also mentioned that “ I had a client who crosses a river before they come to seek health care. One day she came, but I recommended she stays, but she said she would want to go home and prepare. On her way back, she started bleeding. She had to use a canoe to get to the next village. In the canoe, she delivered but the mother died. So they brought her and the baby but the baby couldn’t also survive”.

She concluded that “if we get this Western North Region, where we could also have our regional hospital with our facilities, we can avoid some of these needless deaths”.

The Municipal Chief Executive for Sefwi Wiawso, Louis Owusu Agyepong, also bemoaned the citing of the present day capital “which is at the extreme down-south of the region, making it impossible for those in the north to do business with the regional capital in a day”.

Besides, “there is no region in Ghana that citizens are not able to access its capital and return in a day. But that is the situation in the Western Region. That is fundamentally because of the original location of the capital, Sekondi Takoradi. It is twelve hours to the capital, and 12 hours out. Those affected largely are those from the Bia East and West, coupled by their terrible road network”.

Mr. Agyepong concluded that “so the call for the split, is out of all other considerations but necessary. We have the population, we have the resources, we have the land size and all other things we need to meet the requirement. The split is non-negotiable because we think that is the only way per our understanding and observation; the Western North can develop. It’s not negotiable!”