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The Coalition of Civil Society Organizations operating in the Northern Ecological Savannah Zones has called on Government to include the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) in the 2016 Budget which is yet to be presented.

The Coalition is made up of the Development Research and Advocacy (DRAC), the Northern Patriots in Research and Advocacy(NORPRA) in the Upper East Region, Concerned Citizens Association of Tamale (CCAT) in the Northern Region, the Community Development Alliance (CDA) in the Upper West Region, Centre for Integrated Education and Development(CHED) in the Volta Region and the Global Media Foundation in the Brong Ahafo Region, among others.

A press release signed by the spokesperson, Mr Bismark Adongo Ayorogo on Monday and copied to the GNA in Bolgatanga, stated that Government failed to include SADA in the 2015 Budget statement until there was a public outcry and condemnation which led to its inclusion.

The statement alleged that even though there were budgetary allocations to SADA in both the 2013 and 2014 budgets, they were never disbursed to SADA for its operations, and called on government to release those funds before the 2016 Budget Statement was presented.

“Members of the Coalition have very reliable and credible information that government has planned as usual to ignore SADA in the 2016 Budget Statement. We wish to assure government that this time round Ghanaians, particularly those from the SADA Zone, will not sit on the fence and watch it to continue these illegalities in a country that is governed by the rule of law”, it hinted.

The CSOs explained that considering the fact that SADA was a well-thought out national development programme, there was the need for the government to ensure that at least the Ghc200 million promised by the Government was allocated and disbursed to SADA for the smooth implementation of its programmes.

“While the Coalition is appreciating government’s efforts in restructuring, reshaping, transforming and repositioning SADA very well with very strong leadership that is very committed to transparency and accountability in the management of the authority’s resources, we are urging government not to repeat the grievous and very unpardonable mistake it made in the 2015 Budget, as it failed to allocate resources to SADA till there was a public outcry and condemnation”.

The Coalition proposed that to help SADA to take off fully, there was the need for the government to take the bold steps to introduce levies on non–petroleum imports as captured in the Act that set up SADA to help in its effective implementation.

Whilst commending the new Board and Management for taking bold steps to retrieve all funds that were misappropriated and mismanaged by the previous leadership of SADA and their accomplices, the Coalition called on the current Management to quicken the pace of retrieving all the funds and to constantly update the public, particularly members of the coalition, on progress made so far.

The Coalition said it was very happy that the new crop of leadership of SADA had worked hard in rebranding the image of the Authority, and noted that it had started winning back the lost confidence of Ghana’s development partners who were now prepared to support SADA.