Achievements silence sceptics; other vows will be kept - Prez Akufo-Addo

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said that the achievements of the government in the last three years have silenced the naysayers who had initially claimed that the Akufo-Addo administration could not fulfil the promises it had made to the people, including the creation of new regions.

The NPP’s 2016 electioneering promises include the creation of new regions, the implementation of a free senior high school policy, the revamping of the railway sector, reviving the agricultural sector, the provision of $1 million to every constituency, the One-village, One-dam, the One-district, One-factory and the One-constituency, One-ambulance initiatives.

Tour

Addressing a well-attended durbar in Nkwanta last Sunday as part of his tour of the Oti Region, President Akufo-Addo gave an assurance that all the promises he made would be redeemed in all sectors, including infrastructural development.

He said the Oti Region would continue to witness rapid development under his government to improve the living standards of the people and called on the people to support his vision.

Activities

Today is the last day of the President’s three-day tour of the Oti and the Volta regions.

He cut the sod for the construction of the Oti Regional Office of the Food and Agriculture Directorate and two staff bungalows in Nkwanta.

The two-storey project will have 17 offices, a conference room and a storage facility and is expected to be completed in eight months.

He also inaugurated a Business Resource Centre at Kadjebi and also cut the sod for a regional education directorate at Jasikan.

Agriculture

Touching on agriculture, President Akufo-Addo said Nkwanta, being one of the bread baskets of the country, cultivating major food crops, including maize and yam, as well as cash crops such as cashew, would benefit from government policies.

He said with the passage of the Tree Crop Development Authority Law, the government would ensure that areas such as Nkwanta benefited immensely from government support for the development of their cash crops.

"The investment in cashew in this area will not go waste when the authority is established," he said, explaining that the authority would deal with issues of quality and pricing and ensure that the farmers got proper value for their produce.

Roads

President Akufo-Addo also touched on roads and indicated that the development of feeder roads was crucial because it would enable farmers to transport their produce to market centres and pledged that the Nkwanta municipality would soon see development in that area.

He called for unity among the people of the Oti Region, in spite of the diversity in culture, stating that it was only through unity that the policies and programmes of the government could succeed.

1D1F

The Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Alan Kyerematen, announced that the Nkwanta municipality would benefit from a cassava processing factory as part of the One-district, One-factory initiative, with Kadjebi benefiting from a ginger factory.

Impressive agriculture

In a welcome address, the Paramount Chief of the Akyode Traditional Area at Nkwanta, Nana Obonbo Sewura Lupuwura II, commended the President for fulfilling his promise of creating the Oti Region and also introducing various interventions for farmers, including the free distribution of 250,000 cashew seedlings.

He said through those interventions, yam farmers in the municipality were expected to increase production from 50,000 tonnes annually to 150,000 tonnes, while the cultivation of cashew would also increase from 200 acres to 300 acres in the near future.

Nana Lupuwura, however, appealed to the government to construct the town roads, as well as the Nkwanta-Kpassa stretch of the Eastern Corridor road.

Productive government policies

The Oti Regional Minister, Mr Kwasi Owusu-Yeboah, said since the creation of the region a year ago, 12,826 farmers had benefitted under the Planting for Food and Jobs programme, while the supply of fertilisers had covered over 45,800 acres of land since 2018.

On roads, he said the Hohoe-Jasikan trunk road and the Kpandai-Nkonya-Kwamekrom road, which became virtually unmotorable, were now under construction.

"The Jasikan-Dodo Pepesu stretch of the Eastern Corridor road, which was also in a very bad state, forms part of the Sinohydro-funded projects and that contractors have already been mobilised and moved to site,” the minister said.