GRi Newsreel 03-06-99

Three projects constructed at the Ahafo-Ano North district hospital at Tepa in Ashanti at a cost of 442 million cedis were commissioned on Monday.

They are a fully equipped X'ray unit which cost 300 million cedis, a mothers' hostel costing 56 million cedis and two semi-detached bungalows which cost 86 million cedis.

The occasion also marked the 25th anniversary of the hospital which was started as a clinic by the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) in May 1978.

Performing the ceremony, Mrs Joana Appiah-Dwomoh, Deputy Ashanti Regional Minister, said in spite of financial constraints facing the nation, the government will continue to provide health facilities for the people, particularly for those in rural areas.

She, therefore, warned personnel who will man the x'ray unit to take good care of the equipment and charged the hospital administration to ensure regular maintenance of the equipment.

Mrs Appiah-Dwomoh appealed to people in the district to report any disease that may be discovered in thearea promptly to the health authorities.

Dr Ebenezer Appiah-Denkyira, Ashanti Regional Director of Health Services, noted that there are only four

health facilities caring for the 68,000 people in the district and said these are inadequate. She therefore appealed to the district assembly to help provide more health facilities for the people.

Mr Kobina Fosu, Member of Parliament for Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa has appealed to Christians to respect laws and customs of communities in which they operate in the interest of peace.

He, however, cautioned that breaches of traditional laws should be addressed through dialogue and not by assaults.

Mr Fosu was speaking at the dedication of a 35 million-cedi mission house for the Breman Adikuman district of the Church of Pentecost last Sunday.

He urged the government to bring Christians and traditional authorities together to resolve their differences to avoid similar occurrences in subsequent years.

Mr Fosu called on the congregation to allow truth, honesty and the fear of God to be the foundation of the church.

The area head of the church, Apostle Joseph Albert Mensah, advised members to get involved in communal activities in their communities.

The people of Bullu, a farming community in the Sisala district of the Upper West Region, have appealed to the government to supply them with fishing inputs at subsidised prices to enable them to engage in full time fishing after crop farming seasons.

The Minister of Food Agriculture should also supply them with fingerlings to augment fish spices in their dams.

Mr Sumani Sulemana, the assemblyman for the area who made the appeal on behalf the chief and people of the village said fishing which is their second major occupation has been discontinued for some time now for lack of logistics.

As a result, he said, the village has engaged a Burkinabe fisherman who shares his catch with the chief and elders.

Mr Sulemana said the provision of inputs at subsidised prices will enable them to work and defray their cost and improve on their income levels.

"In view of the erratic rainfall pattern and poor farming lands it is better for us to shift to fishing to supplement our food crop cultivation", the assemblyman stressed.

Three primary school blocks constructed at a total cost of 120 million cedis by Action Aid, Ghana, a British non-governmental organisation (NGO) have been commissioned at separate ceremonies in the Saboba-Chereponi district of the Northern region.

The schools which were furnished and supplied with supplementary readers by the organisation are located in Maboni, Chere and Tinchanga communities.

Commissioning the buildings, Mr Mohammed Seidu Issah Abah, the district chief executive, commended Action Aid, Ghana, for complementing the efforts of the assembly by providing the facilities.

Mr Abah assured Action Aid, Ghana, and all other NGOs that the district assembly would co-operate with them to provide some of the basic needs of the people.

Mr Abah urged parents to make use of the facility by sending their children to school and announced that the assembly has set up a scholarship scheme to assist needy pupils to further their education.

Mrs Frema Osei Opare, country director of Action Aid, said the organisation is now focusing on the root causes of poverty in the area with the aim of evolving a permanent solution.

She said Action Aid would continue to give attention to food security, education, institutional capacity building, water and sanitation, micro financing and health because these areas are crucial to improving the quality of life of the people.

Mrs Opare said the organisation is now shifting emphasis from direct service delivery to strengthening local government structures and decentralised government departments to deliver development activities to their communities.

Trouble seem to brewing at Obo Kwahu in he Eastern region, with the installation of Mr David Kofi Boateng, a 58-year-old chief technical adviser at the Ministry of Works and Housing as the new chief under the stool name Nana Nyarko Boateng the second.

Nana Boateng's installation is despite the existence of Nana Boagyan the second as the substantive chief of the area.

Nana Boateng has sworn the oath of allegiance to the Kwahumanhene, Dasibre Akuamoah Boateng the second who has indicated his support for the new chief.

Speaking to the press after the swearing-in ceremony on why a new chief should be installed when the substantive chief, Nana Yeboah Afari Boagyan the second has not been destooled, Dasibre Boateng said when Nana Boagyan elevated himself as Aduanamanhene in 1996, the Kwahuman Council met, slaughtered six sheep and sent a portion of the carcass to him, as custom demands, to signify his destoolment.

He explained that the acceptance by of the carcass by Nana Boagyan meant that he has accepted the decision of the Kwahuman Council.

Dasibre Boateng said when the other two royal houses realised that Nana Boagyan was not performing his functions as Obohene and Nifahene of the traditional area, they presented a candidate to be installed as Obohene and Nifahene.

When Nana Boagyan was contacted at his palace at Obo, he said he is still the Obohene because he has neither been destooled nor any destoolment charges preferred against him.

He accused the Omanhene of violating the chieftaincy act by accepting the new chief when the incumbent has not been destooled.

Nana Boagyan said there is a pending dispute between him and the Omanhene at the Eastern Regional House of Chiefs at Koforidua on the issue.

The Forestry Research Institute of Ghana (FORIG) on Tuesday presented more than over 80,000 seedlings of tree species to three tree growing associations in the country for transplanting.

The associations are the Ghana National Tree Growers Association, Aframso Tree Growers Association and the Ghana Timber Association (GTA).

While the Ghana National Tree Growers Association collected 40,000 teak seedlings, Aframso had 30,000 teak seedlings and 1,000 wawa seedlings with GTA receiving 10,000 teak seedlings, 1,000 ceiba as well as 1,000 wawa seedlings.

Presenting the seedlings to the various organisations at a ceremony at FORIG campus at Fumesua, near Kumasi, Dr Joseph Rexford Cobbinah, Director of FORIG, said the seedlings cost the institute over 100 million cedis but they have been given to them for free.

This, he said, was to encourage organisations to grow more trees to meet the estimated 200,000 hectares of plantations needed to enable the nation to meet its timber deficit.

Dr Cobbinah said the Timber Export Development Board (TEDB), sponsors of the project, has facilitated the FORIG with 50 million cedis to produce indigenous tree seedlings for farmers.

He said at the moment FORIG has raised 120,000 seedlings which include teak, wawa, ceiba, cassia and other species which will be ready for transplanting by the end of September, this year.

The director indicated that some tolerant lines of odum seedlings are also available for trial plantations, adding that any interested body which asks for seedlings in future would have to pay a token fee to enable the FORIG to meet other expenses.

A team of American students from Connecticut Trinity College of Bartfort, on Wednesday presented teaching equipment including cumputer games, football, science materials and globes valued at one million dollars to the Techiman Ayi Owen International School.

The students led by Mr James Mattison, include Mr Dal Gianoli, Mr Alexander Von Yoorhees, Miss Kim Mendell and Mr Louis Schotsky of Andersen Consultancy, Boston.

Making the presentation on behalf of the team, Mr James Mattison, said the team belongs to a non-profit making organisation known as ''For One World.''

The organisation was born during a campaign to raise 3,000 dollars used to establish the school on September 16, last year.

Buma, a farming community in the 'overseas' area of the East Gonja district now has a clinic, a reward for the peoples' self-help initiative which attracted a 35 million-cedi assistance from the US embassy in Ghana.

The clinic, which serves more than 10 other communities, will save the villagers, who are separated from the rest of the district by the Volta Lake, the ordeal of ferrying patients to Salaga, the district capital for treatment.

The project which was collaborated by the American Peace Corps, the Volta River Authority and the District Assembly was made possible largely through a self-help project with assistance for the US embassy.

Mr Jerry Draman Jackson, the District Chief Executive, who commissioned the clinic said the district assembly has made provision for another clinic at Abrumasi, this year and asked the people to take good care of the clinic.

Mr Jonathan Whedy, Northern Regional co-ordinator of Peace Corps, who represented the American Embassy, pledged more support to the area, especially, in the provision of schools and afforestation projects.