Agro-processing to receive boost in Mfanstiman District

The Mfanstiman District would experience an economic boost with the establishment of an 8,000-dollar pineapple processing plant by the government by next year. The plant, which would have a capacity processing 40 tonnes of pineapples a day, would help create jobs for the youth, while at the same time checking the rural-urban drift, would be installed in Ekumfi traditional area in Mankessim.

Mr Kofi Wilson, District Chief Executive (DCE) for Mfanstiman, who announced this on Thursday, echoed the government's commitment ensuring that all rural communities are developed to help better the lot of the people there because they form a greater percentage of the country's population.

He was answering questions during an open forum held as part of a week- long celebration of the rural development week at Abease-Dominase, as to what the government was doing to better the lot of people in the Mfanstiman District.

The DCE therefore, tasked farmers in the area to pick up the challenge by working harder to produce more pineapples to feed the plant on sustainable basis, and also urged them to form co-operatives. Mr Wilson said the district has so far received 500 million cedis as part of its share of the HIPC relief fund, and that all communities in the district would benefit, saying, an early childhood development centre would be built in the town with some of the money from the fund. On their tax obligation, he appealed to members of the area council to ensure that all employed persons pay their taxes promptly to enable the assembly to undertake development project.

Mr Wilson and the Chief of the Town, Daasebre Kwepu Ewusi VII, later cut the tape to commission a 95 million cedis market project for the town, built by the assembly.

Daasebre Ewusi appealed to his people to make use of the market to enable the assembly to generate revenue to provide more projects for the area, and also asked the assembly to rehabilitate roads in the area to help boost economic activities.

The Assemblyman for the Dominase-Kyaakor electoral area, Ismail Sam-Mensah, said the town was lagging behind in development because of the poor state of roads and rampant power outages, and appealed to the assembly to help solve the problem.