Mr John Agyare, Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of Ahanta West in the Western Region has lauded the government’s determination to carry through its policies of one district – one factory (1D1F), the agricultural development policy of Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ), and the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy among others.
He pointed out that the government has shown commitment to promoting Local Economic Development through the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) programme which has gone through a number of cycles of successful implementation with amazing and life-changing testimonies.
He said the introduction of Oil Palm as a cash crop in the Ahanta West under the Planting for Export and Rural Development (PERD) is aimed at improving the economic wellbeing of our people.
According to him, “what is required of us is to commit ourselves individually and collectively to ensure that we increase our commitment to all these Government programmes so as to obtain the maximum benefits from such initiatives.”
Mr Agyare who made the remarks in an interview with the igoghana noted that education remains an important tool for fighting poverty and securing the lives of our future generation hence, the NPP-Government sees a lot of wisdom in providing free and quality education to all Ghanaian children which is why the Free Senior High School policy has been consciously crafted and is now in its sixth year of implementation.
He said the government was committed to promoting this policy and continuously improving on its implementation by dealing with the current challenges associated with it and for that matter, Ghanaians must understand that the future of our country rests in the hands of these children, and the best we can do to secure this future is to give them the opportunity to be educated.
Mr Agyare indicated that the commitment of the Akufo-Addo led government in improving the Free Senior High School policy has been amply demonstrated by the introduction of various strategies over the years including the double-track system.
“We, as citizens have to put ourselves in a better position to maximize our gains in this laudable initiative. We can only do this by enhancing the quality of basic education to produce BECE products that are qualified to proceed to Senior Secondary Education. Fortunately for us in Ahanat West, the performance at the BECE keeps improving especially, from 65% in 2018 to 85% in 2019 and 94.8% in 2020”, he stressed.
He expressed the optimism that this year’s performance will show another improvement and congratulated the Municipal Education Directorate, teachers, parents and all other stakeholders for the various roles played that have contributed to this achievement.
He, therefore, urged all the stakeholders to continue in this spirit to ensure a better future for students in the Municipality.
However, he lamented that illegal mining or galamsey continues to threaten the environment in the area even though the government has committed to improving the activities of small-scale miners through the community mining initiative.
Mr Agyare called on the people, especially the youth to take advantage of the initiative so as to rid the rivers of the current level of pollution and also urged the traditional leaders to collaborate effectively with the Assembly to bring order to the operations of the youth who were in such illegal business.
He noted that it was impossible to live together as humans without any differences, especially in the areas of partisan politics, religion, chieftaincy and creed and said before all these, they were first and foremost sons and daughters of Ahantaman and Ghana for which reason they should be able to use tried and tested traditional means of resolving differences as well as modern legal processes to resolve, especially the numerous chieftaincy conflicts within the Municipality.
He, therefore, appealed to the residents to see themselves as one people with a common destiny and for that matter use their individual talents, energy and skills to support the growth and development of Ahantaman in particular and Ghana as a whole.
