By Albert Futukpor
Buipe (S/R), Sept. 1, GNA – The Buipe Livestock Market in the Central Gonja District of the Savannah Region has been inaugurated to boost livestock trade and development in the area.
The Buipe area is a strategic livestock production and marketing zone in the region, where many actors in the livestock value-chain converge to do business, hence siting the market there.
It was constructed by the Ghana Developing Communities Association (GDCA), a non-governmental organisation, in partnership with the Central Gonja District Assembly.
Funding support came from Acting for Life, an organisation based in France, the European Union, and the French Development Agency (AFD) as part of the Project to Support Livestock Mobility for Better Access to Resources and Markets in West Africa (PAMOBARMA).
The PAMOBARMA is also to promote peaceful co-existence between herders and farmers, particularly those involved in transhumance and crop farming.
Dr Osman Al-Hassan, the Board Chairman of GDCA, whose speech was read on his behalf, said the market was one of the highest contributing sources to the internally generated funds of the Assembly to support development projects.
“In addition, the GDCA and the Central Gonja District Assembly constructed a dug-out, transhumance campsite and secured a 200-acre grazing reserve at Gberigi community. This is to further support access to water and grazing resources and improve livestock production in the area,” he said.
He urged the Assembly and the management committees of the various agropastoral infrastructure in the district to continue to work together in harmony for better and efficient management of those facilities.
Mr Iddrisu Salia, the Central Gonja District Chief Executive, said the Livestock Market was in line with the Assembly’s goal of promoting business growth within the area.
It was also in line with the Government’s agricultural policies to boost and grow the animal industry and enhance the Assembly’s efforts in revenue generation, he said.
Alhaji Alhassan Alfa, the Chairman of the Buipe Livestock Market Management Committee, expressed gratitude to the partners for the facility and said it would touch many lives, who depended on the livestock sector for their livelihoods.
Buipewura Abdulai Jinapor II, Paramount Chief of Buipe, whose speech was read on his behalf, said the market cemented Buipe’s status as the business hub in the region.
He called on stakeholders who patronised the services to pay the right tolls to help maintain the market to continue to serve them.
GNA