COCOBOD to revamp roads in cocoa growing areas

The COCOBOD has given 89 billion cedis to the Department of Feeder Roads to rehabilitate some major roads in cocoa growing areas this year. The rehabilitation is to make it easy for cocoa to be evacuated from the hinterland to processing centres and to the ports for shipment.

Mr. Benjamin Osei-Kufuor, Member of Parliament for Asunafo North, said this at a forum dubbed "peoples assembly," which the Asunafo District Assembly organised to render accounts of its stewardship to the people at Goaso. He said enough measures had been adopted to ensure that this year's mass spraying exercise was more successful, adding that all inputs had been sent to the cocoa areas.

Mr. Osei-Kufuor stated that efforts were also underway to secure funds to tar the Nobeko-Sankore-Boako road. Mr. George Yaw Boakye, Asunafo District Chief Executive, said the assembly used its internally generated fund of 204.3 million cedis last year to support electrification, roads, health and school projects in various parts of the district.

He said more than 2.6 billion cedis of the District Assembly Common Fund was spent on 23 old and new projects. The assembly was constructing a market each at Goaso, Sakore, Kukuom and Gondaase, while 23 boreholes and 48 kilometres of farm roads had been approved under the Village Infrastructure Project, the DCE said.

Mr. Boakye said the Community Water and Sanitation Project had also approved 30 boreholes for construction under phase two of its programme while the European Union Small Town Water Project had also been completed at the cost of 1.2 billion cedis. Mr. Boakye said the assembly was sponsoring 60 students in various teacher Training colleges and would be bonded to teach in the rural areas.

He said an education endowment fund, which was launched in January this year had yielded over 150 million cedis and called on parents to apply to enable their wards to benefit. During an open forum, participants called on the assembly to work hard to ensure that the area was provided with telephone services by the end of the year.

Some of them also expressed displeasure about the way last year's mass cocoa spraying exercise was conducted in the district and urged the government to ensure that all the bottlenecks were cleared to ensure the success of the exercise this year.