People of Volta called to recommit themselves to their Ghanaian

citizenship.

Kpeve, (V/R), Jan. 25, GNA - A Minister of State has appealed to the People of the Volta Region to recommit themselves to their Ghanaian identity and put behind them events that took place in the region prior to the attainment of independence in 1957. Miss Elizabeth Ohene, a Minister of State in the Office of the President, said this at the People's Assembly in Ho and Kpeve on Tuesday.

She urged people of the region to make the best use of the opportunities being offered by the government to improve themselves and the region as a whole.

Miss Ohene said it was essential that people of the region held fast the pursuit of education and knowledge, an invaluable heritage bequeathed to them by their forebears.

She said it was essential that the region enriched itself by borrowing and adopting what was positive from other people. Miss Ohene appealed to chiefs in the region to adopt measures to assist the government and well-meaning citizens to confront the menace of bushfires and their destructive effects on the land. Major Courage Quarshigah (RTD), the Minister of Health, said "progress is stalled and the future lost when the past is set against the present."

That, he said, accounted for the current state of the country and that this must be exorcised as the country embarked on another 50 years journey.

In 1956 the Volta Region, then a United Nations Protectorate following the defeat of its colonial master Germany in World War 11 decided, in a plebiscite, to join the Gold Coast then preparing to become independent.