The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for Bolga­tanga in the Upper East Region, Mr Roland Atanga Ayoo, has inspected the progress work on Phase II of the Gulf of Guinea Northern Regions Social Cohesion (SOCO) projects in the municipality.Accompanied by a senior man­agement team from the Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly; including Mr Daniel Atchulo, an Engineer, Juliana Talata Agyeyomah, Plan­ning Officer, and Juliana Elizabeth Soyiri, Gender Desk Officer, the MCE inspected about four projects in different communities in the Municipality.His visit to the site was to gather first-hand information on the prog­ress and challenges associated with the execution of the projects.In an interview with The Ghana­ian Times after the inspection tour, Mr Ayoo described as 'mixed bag' as his impression in regard to the ongoing execution of the projects by the contractors.At the Soe-Yipaala community, he commended the contractor working on the Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) Compound, over the level of progress in the construction expedition.According to him, the contractor, he was told was only introduced to site on November 18, 2024, and the facility, which features high-qual­ity, well-maintained bedrooms, restrooms, kitchen and toilets de­signed with modern conveniences, was about 90 per cent complete.He said, he was very optimistic the facility, if fully completed and handed over to the beneficiary com­munity, would aid reduce the health concerns of the people in that part of Bolgatanga.Mr Ayoo, however, asked the contractor to double up efforts to complete the project on the sched­ule timeline.The story was not different at Sherigu, where work on the con­struction of a three-unit classroom block for the Senior High School was progressing steadily, with the Bolgatanga Municipal Engineer reaffirming the contractor's com­mitment to getting the project fully executed within timelines.However, the narrative was not the same at the Azoribisi, a suburb of Sumbrungu, where the execution of a footbridge had been stalled over limited funds.The footbridge contract, awarded in October last year, was supposed to be fully prosecuted and handed over in June 2025, but the failure of the Assembly in the previous regime to release mobili­sation funds for the contractor to continue with the project had frus­trated the project in no mean way.The collapse bridge has disrupt­ed connectivity between the Azo­ribisi and Dindoobisi communities, with hundreds of school children unable to access schools in either communities, especially during the rainy season."We take responsibility for the delay in the execution of the proj­ect because the Assembly has not made payment to the contractor to continue with the project, and he left the project site," he indicated.The SOCO project is a 450 million US Dollar World Bank facility for the northern region of the Gulf of Guinea countries that face serious threats of southward transmission of the rapidly escalat­ing Sahel conflict.The beneficiary countries in­clude; Ghana, Cote D 'Ivoire, Togo and Benin, with Ghana benefiting from a whopping 150 million US Dollars. FROM FRANCIS DABRE DABANG, BOLGATANGA