Mr Stephen Yakubu, the Upper West Regional Minister has called on the people to be more security conscious to complement the efforts of the security agencies to maintain peace for development. He said even though the region remained relatively peaceful, it had also experienced pockets of security breaches, which served as a wakeup call for a concerted and collective efforts of the people to help sustain the gains made by the few security agencies in the region. He said one area that needed attention and must be focused on as far as the security of the region was concerned, had been the numerous chieftaincy and land disputes that the region was challenged with, which needed to be properly and urgently resolved amicably to help enhance the prevailing peace in the communities. 'Currently, the region is dealing with 14 petitions pending before the Judicial Committee of the Regional House of Chiefs and the various Traditional Councils awaiting to be settled', he said. Mr Yakubu made the call at the Regional Co ordinating Council's general meeting held in Wa to deliberate on issues pertaining to peace and development to benefit the people. He encouraged the Regional House of Chiefs to adopt use of the traditional conflict resolution mechanisms, the outcome of which would lead to absolute healing than the court system noted for satisfying one faction as against the other. He warned that the Regional Coordinating Council and the Regional Security Council even though had no mandate to involve in chieftaincy and land disputes, would not compromise with the peace of the region, while calling on the media to educate people to give peace a chance, especially in this electioneering year. Mr Yakubu said one other security threat to the security of the region was food security caused by the long spell of drought that went through this year's cropping season that had destroyed about 223,953 hectares of crops in the region. He announced that the government had taken measures to provide GHS1,000.00 per hectare as an incentiv e package among others for farmers whose crops were destroyed by the drought. The Regional Minister appealed to the farmers whose food crops were affected to patiently wait for the Department of Agriculture to assess the damage caused to their crops and provide the actual data to the government for appropriate compensation. On roads, he said the year-on-year outcry of poor conditions of roads, the government had initiated the District Roads Improvement Project (DRIP) and provided earth moving machines to the various municipal and district assemblies to make roads accessible to facilitate the movement of people, goods, and services. He appealed to the assemblies, particularly the operators of the machines and equipment, to maintain them properly to ensure that 'we get value for money.' Source: Ghana News Agency