Politicians blamed for recent cassava growers' demo at Awutu Bawjiase

Kasoa, July 27, GNA - The Vice-Chairman of the Awutu-Senya constituency branch of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Alhaji Mohamed Allampakah, has appealed to politicians not to "play politics" with the President's Special Initiative on Cassava project.

He warned that any such act would cause great financial loss to the state because the government had committed huge sums of money into the Ayensu Cassava Starch Company at Awutu-Bawjiase.

Alhaji Allampakah made the call at a meeting with a group of NPP functionaries at Kasoa at the weekend.

He alleged that the recent threat by some registered cassava growers of the Ayensu Cassava Starch Company to embark on an industrial action to back their demands for better prices for their produce was engineered by some politicians.

Alhaji Allampakah, who declined to name the politicians involved, however, said that a few days before the farmers' action certain leading members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), including members of Parliament had met with some groups of cassava producers within the company's catchment area.

Alhaji Allampakah reminded politicians who "masterminded the farmers' action" of the negative effects of such activities on the socio-economic development of the country and advised them to always seek the interest of the nation above their partisan sentiments.

He advised the farmers not to allow themselves to be used by selfish politicians to undermine government programmes to improve the lot of individual farmers and the national economy.

Instead, they should always strive to iron out their differences with the management of the company through dialogue to ensure peace and progress and increased productivity.

In another development, Alhaji Mohamed Suragy, Chief linguist of Kasoa also counselled resident of the community to take a serious view of the national campaign against tuberculosis to protect themselves against. Addressing women, mostly traders at Kasoa, he said the disease, which medical experts claimed was causing devastating effects on the lives of millions of Ghanaians must be feared, adding that everything must be done to stop its spread.

Alhaji Suragy appealed to unit committees in the town to support the on-going medical students' house-to-house campaign in the area against the disease to ensure the success of the programme.

He, however, expressed concern about the poor attendance recorded at the launch of the National Health Week at Kasoa, over the weekend and appealed to the organizers to make effective preparatory works against subsequent events to ensure massive participation of the people in such important national programmes.