Senya Bereku Citizens celebrate Akomase Festival

Mr Sampson Armah, the Awutu-Senya West District Chief Executive, has warned citizens of Senya Bereku to desist from winning sand and engaging in stone quarrying at the beaches.

He said it was criminal to use the beaches for such activities adding that the District Security Council (DISEC) would not hesitate to arrest such unpatriotic citizens and prosecute them to serve as deterrent to others.

Mr Armah, who is also the Chairman of DISEC, gave the warning at a durbar of chiefs and people of Senya Bereku Traditional Area to climax their 2015 Akomase Festival.

The festival, which was on the theme: “Unity and Peace: The Requisite Tools for Proper Community Development,” commenced with activities including general clean-up exercise, homecoming congress, inter-schools quiz, soccer and Twafo Number One and Dentifo asafo groups procession.

Mr Armah said a surveillance by the assembly at Senya beach indicated that people collected the sand and quarried the stones along the banks of the sea to make money, and called on perpetrators to stop such acts.

“If each and every one of us is levied for construction of even a four-meter sea defence wall, it will be a problem and why should we continue endangering the beaches,” he said.

Mr Alex Essoun, the 2015 Akomase Festival Planning Committee Chairman, in his welcome address, said the festival had direct link with the Homowo Festival by the Ga-Dangmes, which literally means hooting at hunger and welcomed the bumper harvest of food.

He said the occasion was also used for family reunion meetings, welcome citizens living in the Diaspora, as well as to strategies to forge ahead as one people with a common destiny.

Mr Essoun said the traditional area appreciated government’s efforts at improving the lives of the people by selling fishing gear to them at affordable prices, and the construction of other infrastructure including a modern dining hall for the only SHS in the area.

He appealed to the Government to consider the construction of the landing site, which has remained on the drawing board for a very long time and also to upgrade the Senya Health Center to a polyclinic.

Neenyi Kwa Bentum, Tufuhene of the area, who presided over the festival, thanked his people and those who contributed towards a successful and peaceful Akomase celebration.

“We have only one Senya, whose destiny depends on all of us and there is the need for us to put aside our differences, see ourselves as one people to enable us to collectively combine our resources towards the development of the traditional area,” he added.