Ghanaians are witnesses to fulfilment of NPP’s manifesto — DCE

The District Chief Executive (DCE) for Asuogyaman in the Eastern Region, Mr Samuel Kwame Agyekum, has said Ghanaians are witnesses to the fulfilment of the manifesto of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) under the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo-led government.

He said the Asuogyaman District was also not relenting in its efforts for the implementation of the government’s flagship programmes.

“The government is bent on delivering on all the promises to Ghanaians that can be found in the party’s manifesto. We have started fulfilling them and we shall get there by the end of the four-year mandate that Ghanaians have given us,” Mr Agyekum stressed.

The DCE said one of the major policies of the NPP was to create jobs for the people through many interventions, including the One-district, One-factory, Planting For Food and Jobs, Nation Builders Corps (NaBCo) among others, adding that the government would ensure they were all fulfilled by the time its mandate was over.

Graduation of trainees

Mr Agyekum made these comments at a graduation of 40 women who had undergone training in soap making and cassava processing at Gyakiti in the Asuogyaman District.

The training was facilitated through the Rural Enterprise Programme and primarily aimed at improving the livelihood and incomes of rural poor micro and small entrepreneurs in the country.

He said over 600 people, mostly unemployed women and youth, had been provided with employable skills training in soap making, grasscutter rearing, fish farming, batik and dye, fish processing, leather works, mushroom cultivation, baking and flour confectionery, and majority of them were engaged in their own businesses.

More interventions for employability

In addition to that, Mr Agyekum said over 650 micro and small enterprises had received counselling and advisory services from the assembly through the Business Advisory Centre (BAC) to enhance the operations of their businesses.

He said 475 master craft persons and apprentices were assisted and wrote the National Vocational / Technical Training Institute Certificate examinations, and some of them had been enlisted in the Police Service, Fire Service and the Military while some of them had been employed by the Volta River Authority (VRA).

Mr Agyekum added that 55 unemployed graduate youth in the district had been sent to the Asuansi Farm Institute under the Enabling Youth in Agriculture Business programme to undertake short courses in grasscutter and rabbit, pig, goat and sheep rearing, as well as poultry.

He said 10 out of the 55 had received start-up equipment and raw materials and had started their own businesses.       

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Revamping the Akosombo Textiles Company

Mr Agyekum said over 60 years, the Akosombo Textiles Limited (ATL) factory sustained the district and the country at large in terms of job creation; however for some time now, its level of production had gone down, resulting in some of the workers being laid off.

He said his administration was going to revive the factory which had the capacity to employ 5,000 workers, thereby fulfilling the job creation promise.
 
In line with that, he explained that a United Kingdom (UK) investor was in the country and liaising with the district assembly and the Trade and Industry Ministry to see the way forward, adding that: “ATL is the heart of Asuogyaman.”

He congratulated the trainees for availing themselves to undergo the exercise to make their lives more meaningful with the requisite skills.

The Asuogyaman Director of BAC, Mr Daniel Owusu Ansah, said BAC, under the aegis of the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) and supported by the Rural Enterprises Programme, had provided various interventions since it was established in 2004 at Asuogyaman to create employment for the unemployed.

He said over 3,600 people in the district had benefited from one or two of such interventions.

He, therefore, advised the youth to get themselves involved to gain employable skills.