The Kong Traditional Area is one of the food baskets of the Savannah Region as the residents are into both commercial and peasant farming.
They cultivate yam, maize, soyabean, rice and rear livestock and poultry.
In fact, the story of agriculture cannot be told without mentioning the Kong Traditional Area due to its significant contribution towards food production.
In spite of the potentials of the area , it is underdeveloped and deprived.
The community is lacking numerous basic social amenities which is negatively affecting the standard of living of the residents.
The Paramount Chief of the area, Kongwura Jinkurge I, made the challenges known during his 2023 Damba festival celebration which was held on October 15, 2023, on the theme “Unity, Peace and Development: the Youth as a factor”
Challenges
For instance, the road network connecting the community to Sawla, the District capital, is in a very deplorable state and has never seen any rehabilitation.
During the rainy season, the residents are cut off from the rest of the District and region as cars and motorbikes are not able to access the road.
More troubling is the residents’ inability to cart their farm produce to the markets in the cities, especially during the rainy season due to the bad nature of the road.
Also negatively impacting the lives of the people is lack of electricity in the area.
The Chief particularly complained about the deplorable nature of the road and said it was affecting their day to day activities as farmers.
He lamented the frustrations women went through as a result of the bad roads and lack of electricity as well as access to some basic social amenities in the District capital.
“Pregnant women suffer a lot to access health care outside the community due to the lack of clinic and the bad nature of the road”, he said.
The Chief also mentioned lack of standard school block, potable drinking water and telephone network connectivity as some of the immediate concerns of the community and the Traditional Area at large.
He therefore, appealed to the government to provide them with basic amenities to improve their living condition.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 11, four and three advocate sustainable cities and communities, quality education, and good health and well-being of all citizens irrespective of their geographical location.
However, achieving these goals by 2030 appears to be bleak with the glaring state of deprivation of communities such as Kong.
Source: yagbonradioonline
