Dr Mustapha Abdul- Hamid
The Minister for Inner Cities and Zongo Development, Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, has promised the Council of Zongo Chiefs that he will use his good offices to ensure that their request for financial support to enable them respond effectively to the restoration of peace and harmony in the Zongos is granted.
This was after the Council of Zongo Chiefs had requested that their activities be considered and given a budgetary allocation.
The Public Relations Officer of the Council, Umar Baba Musah, explained how they had to pool their own resources to deal with issues in the Zongo communities and other places across the country.
“We contribute money from our own pockets to attend to all issues of our concern and national dimension like the Hohoe and the Kumasi brouhaha which occurred recently when some youth were shot by the police and many others; so we pray that our activities be considered and given a budgetary allocation to support them,” he stressed.
This was when Dr. Abdul-Hamid met with the Council of Zongo Chiefs last week at the Abbossey Okai Central Mosque to introduce himself to them as the new Minister for the Ministry of Inner Cities and Zongo Development.
He informed them that his Ministry is President Akufo-Addo’s instrument for transforming the Zongo communities and, as the new Minister, he would do his best to live up to the expectations of the President.
According to him, the Ministry has come to stay and will deliver on its mandate to eradicate poverty, ignorance and diseases from the Zongo communities and the only way to do that is through education, adding “so my priority, as the new minister, is to ensure that education becomes paramount in the Zongo communities because it is only through that the development we all envisage would be realized.”
“Education liberates and can empty our prisons and reduce crime because people would become enlightened; they would add value to their lives and become more responsible,” he emphasized.
He said though two years is not enough to accomplish the vision for the transformation of the over 1080 Zongo communities across the country, he would do his best to touch all the communities since it is the President’s heartbeat to give equal opportunities to all Ghanaian citizens irrespective of location.
The Minister later visited Korle-Gonno and Chokor, suburbs of Accra, where he interacted with the members of the Muslim Mission.
He encouraged the residents not to ignore secular education as they continue with Muslim and Arabic education.