Wassa East District places second in teenage pregnancy table

Wassa East District in the Western Region is reported as the second worst spot on the 22 Districts Teenage Pregnancy Table.

Mr Wilson Arthur, District Chief Executive who announced this at the second ordinary meeting of the third session of the 7th assembly at Daboase said 17 girls out of the 2,127 pupils who registered for this year's BECE were pregnant.

He said in response to the high unacceptable prevalence of teenage pregnancies, sexual and Child Abuse cases, the District Child Protection Committee embarked on a pilot sensitisation tour in schools to motivate and educate the children in how best to protect themselves from social vices, their rights, duties and responsibilities as children.

Mr Arthur also tasked the community and Social Welfare Department to intensify their campaign on child protection.

"We must take a stand to combat Teenage pregnancies in our various communities, if you co-opt traditional leadership, churches and mosques, we would crack this challenge in no time”.

Touching on Health, the DCE said the Assembly was determined to improve on the welfare of people through various interventions and that the health directorate had undertaken activities to address the health needs of the people.

He mentioned the training of 40 staff in quality improvement on family planning, training of 40 staff in the introduction of new vaccines, registration of 27,973 households for LLNs as well as the provision of 24 hours clinical services in all health facilities.

On the National Health insurance scheme (NHIS) Mr Arthur said as of the end of May this year 2,147 new persons had registered and 9,796 had their cards renewed.

With water and sanitation, the DCE said two out of seven boreholes have been mechanised and new boreholes had also been drilled at Manponso and Nsuta communities adding that by 2020 the District would achieve 100 per cent potable water service.

Touching on local economic development and other projects, he said the Business Advisory Centre during the year under review trained 66 members of the Garages Association in occupational safety and environmental management, in addition 389 MSEs were trained in entrepreneurship, 18 gari producers were trained in technology improvement in cassava processing and 58 unemployed women and men were trained in soap making.

The DCE announced that the Takoradi Technical University Tourism Department has adopted the District to support it to professionally develop tourism attractions, adding that the Domama Rock Shrine would be the focus this year.

He said staff and students of TTU tourism Department have already visited the Domama Chiefs and people and said chieftaincy disputes and illegal mining activities continued to be a major threat to the security of the District He said with 33 professional police officers and 25 community police assistants to manage a population of 113,819, there was the need to invest more in securing peace, people, property and especially the environment.

Mr Arthur said from January to June this year the District reported 76 assault cases, 46 thefts, 26 threat of harm, 11 cases of causing damage, six fraud and five threat of death cases.

The rest are four causing harm cases, four offensive conduct, two unlawful entry, two abortion cases, two murder and two abduction cases with one case of attempted murder.