PSI On Salt To Take Off At Ada

The Ada Traditional Council and other stakeholders of the Ada Songor Lagoon have resolved their differences to allow the government go ahead with the President's Special Initiative (PSI) on Salt in the area.

A Divisional Chief of the Ada Traditional Council, Nene Korle III announced this in a resolution presented to the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Sheikh I.C.Quaye at a meeting in Accra. The resolution signed by fourteen chiefs and three members of the Ada Concerned Youth Association was the outcome of a meeting held by the Traditional Council and other stakeholders after their meeting with the Cabinet Select Committee on the issue. Nene Korle III said all the chiefs and the youth have agreed that there would be no quarrel among them and that none of the groups would put any stumbling block on the way of the government.

A spokesman for the Ada Songor Lagoon Basin Land Owners Committee, Dr Sandy Puplampu who seemed not to be in agreement with some of the issues, questioned the basis of the agreement. He said there is the need for the formation of a technical committee to look into the PSI so that the people would not be carried into any form of slavery. Nene Oboade I, Development Chief of the area said government would create other saltpans for the salt miners so that they would not enter into the areas of the investors. He also disagreed with Dr Puplampu and questioned, Who are even the land owners when the area has chiefs.

Nene Oboade said the traditional council and the stakeholders have called for meetings several times, which the Dr Pupulampu and his people have never attended. Sheikh I.C Quaye said the meeting was a sort of a family meeting with the aim of arriving at common plan to end any form of conflict and to see the realisation of the noble project. He said government's position is not to interfere in the distribution of Ada lands but to create an enabling environment for investors without any fear of litigation. Sheikh I.C Quaye said it is also to facilitate the efforts of chiefs and land owners to enable the PSI to take off so that salt could be produced in large quantities to be marketed not only for the sub-region but the whole world.