The Assembly
The Talensi District was one of the Districts created in the year 2012 following the carving out of the Nabdam District from the then Talensi-Nabdam-District Assembly and established by the Legislative Instrument, L.I.2110. Tongo is its District capital. The profile of Talensi District looks at among others the physical and natural environment, demographic setting, social services and institutional setting of the District.
Vision
The District envisages being a district where all resources are harnessed and sustainably managed in collaboration with all partners to ensure food security, equitable access to health and education, gainful employment, peace and security for a high standard of living for its people.
Mission Statement
The Talensi District Assembly exists to ensure the sustainable improvement in the quality of life and capabilities of its people by providing equitable, efficient and quality socioeconomic facilities and other services in collaboration with the private sector and other stakeholders, by mobilizing all available resources in a cost effective and transparent manner.
Our Core Values
The Talensi District Assembly strives for accountability, transparency, efficiency, effectiveness and integrity through:
- Fairness in its deliveries without bias to a particular group or groups of persons, community etc;
- Confidentiality;Keeping a both official and private information private until consent to release the information is provided by the authority/management.
- Meritocracy; Positions/schedules should be vested in individuals on the basis of talent, effort and achievement
- Equity; the quality of being fair and impartial in decision making and the distribution of resources
- Timely delivery of quality services; services rendered at an opportune and favorable or useful time.
Location and Size
It is located in the Upper East Region and has its capital at Tongo. It is bordered to the North by the Bolgatanga Municipal, South by the West and East Mamprusi Districts (both in the Northern Region), Kassena-Nankana District to the West and the Bawku West and Nabdam Districts to the East. The District lies between latitude 10’ 15” and 10’ 60” north of the equator and longitude 0’ 31” and 1’ 0.5” and west of the Greenwich meridian. It has a total land area of about 838.4 km2. This indicates that the District is large and will require many socio-economic infrastructures in terms of the geographical spread of the District. The large nature of the District would make it difficult to ensure fair distribution of facilities and almost impossible for many people to have easy access to the limited services provided. There is the need to provide more socio-economic facilities to ensure equitable distribution of service delivery.
Population
The District as at 2010 had an estimated population of 81,194. Out of this number the male population stood at 40,831 representing 50.3 % of the entire population and the female population stood at male and 40,353 and also representing 49.7% of the population with an estimated growth rate of 1.6. The district’s population density stood at 98.8 persons per square kilometer (source: 2010 population and housing census).
Culture
The District has two (2) dialectic communities; (the Taleni, and Guruni speaking communities) within the Talensi traditional area. The traditional area gives so much reverence to their custom, norms, values and taboos. Many things are kept sacred, adored and prohibited by the people of the community. Many custodians of the traditional practices derive their livelihood from these sacred places as they serve as community-based healing and psychological relieving centres and most recently eco-tourism site. Though most often unwelcoming to physical development, the religious adherence to these conventions provide an avenue to protect and conserve land and natural resources.
The land tenure system in the Talensi community is usufruct in nature. The land is either owned by individuals or by families in fragments and held in trust for the dead, present and future by the Tindana (priest or custodian of the land). In few communities however, land ownership is vested in one person, the chief (who also serves as the Tindana), who holds the allodial title. The power to decide on the transfer of ownership is vested on the individuals or families. However, in the situation where the chief holds the allodial title, (Pusu-Namogo,Tongo-Beo and Buing) where land is vested in one person he has the right to decide on the ownership.
The district is laden with cultural festivals and customary practices that are celebrated annually and are widely patronized, some commence the planting season and others occur after the harvesting of crops. Some of these have a characteristic that relate to the dialectic areas and some with different purposes. Examples are thanks giving, performance review, social cohesion etc.
The notable ones include Tungama that relate to the Guruni speaking areas, Tenlebgre, Golbo and Daaga festivals that relate to the Taleni speaking areas. There are other festivals and cultural performances that are localized in nature to foster closed community and family ties.
Traditional Authorities
There is one (1) paramountcy namely; Talensi, with a Talensi traditional Council. Each village has a chief. Apart from the chiefs, there are Tindanas who are the custodian of the sacred traditions as well as the administrators of the ancestral lands, which they hold in trust for the living and dead.