Minister urges chiefs to co-operate with ministry

Sunyani, Jan. 11, GNA - Mr. Sampson Kwaku Boafo, Minister of State at the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Culture, has appealed to traditional rulers to collaborate with the ministry to identify tourist sites in their communities for development.

He said the ministry would coordinate the conduct of research into archaeological and historic sites to determine their viability for wealth creation and in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism and Diaspora Relations explore the tourism potential of other sites". Mr. Boafo said this on Thursday at the first general meeting of the Brong-Ahafo Regional House of Chiefs for 2008 as part of his tour to 12 districts and municipalities in the region.

"This year, the Ministry will ensure that public education on economic, social, cultural, political and civil rights of citizenry will be carried out as well as promoting inter-cultural dialogue and participate in cultural exchange programmes and international experience sharing". He appealed to the chiefs to consider ways to ensure that the extended family system did not become extinct. "In advanced countries where there is no extended family system, it's pathetic to see a middle class educated person sending the parent to old people's home."

Mr. Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, Brong-Ahafo Regional Minister, said to further deepen the decentralization process, three new districts were created, namely Dormaa East, Sunyani West and Nkoranza North, bringing the number of administrative district/municipalities in the region to 22, while Berekum, Dormaa, Wenchi and Kintampo North were elevated to municipal status.

On education, he said each district assembly now had an average of 50 schools since the NPP government came to power. An analysis of BECE results over the last three years indicates that the performance of school children at the basic level has not improved much.

The average performance of the region has been hovering between 65.2 in 2005, 65.1 in 2006 and 65.7 per cent in 2007. Some 170 schools in the region are participating in the school feeding programme with about 90,000 school children benefiting. The result is that attendance has gone up by 98 per cent and enrolment up by 24.1 per cent in the beneficiary schools. Eighty per cent of food used for the programme is procured from the local markets, thus creating ready markets for locally produced food crops. The programme has also generated employment for 600 cooks and caterers in the region.

He said the introduction of t he capitation grant by government as a way of accelerating the FCUBE programme had substantially increased enrolment levels in basic schools in all the districts in the region. The Regional Minister appealed to them to use their position to preach the message of political tolerance as the political temperature of the nation increased.

Okatakyie Agyeman Kudom IV, Nkoranzahene and President of the House, thanked the Minister for allocating a new Nissan patrol vehicle to the House for its activities. He expressed the hope that more cases would be disposed off this year with the new counsel at post. He appealed to the chiefs to use their traditional dispute resolution mechanism to solve some of the disputes in their traditional areas.