APA – Accra (Ghana)
The report that farmers affected by the devastation caused by the spillage of the Akosombo and Kpong dams are to benefit from a $40 million food systems resilience programme funded by the World Bank is one of the leading stores in the Ghanaian press on Thursday.
The Graphic reports that farmers affected by the devastation caused by the spillage of the Akosombo and Kpong dams are to benefit from a $40 million food systems resilience programme funded by the World Bank.
The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Bryan Acheampong, who announced this, said the restructured programme was “to fully restore friends, brothers and families on the Volta and Eastern stretch of the Akosombo Dam’s path whose farms have been wiped out due to the necessary action taken by the Volta River Authority (VRA) to save us all”.
Dr Acheampong said this when he addressed a presidential conference on youth in agriculture in Accra yesterday.
The conference was organised by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) in collaboration with the Youth Employment Agency (YEA).
Last Monday when President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo toured the flooded areas in the Volta Region, he announced that the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) would work on a long-term relief programme for farmers affected by the floods.
The President said he was aware many farms along the Volta River had been destroyed by the floods, for which reason a relief programme needed to be set up to restore the livelihood of the people.
The newspaper says that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has estimated that 2.3 million Ghanaians are living with various mental health conditions.
However, although access to treatment is a basic human right, 98 per cent of people living with mental health conditions in the country do not enjoy that right.
A Component Manager at the Ghana-European Centre for Jobs, Migration and Development (GEC), Michael Kwaku Yeboah, was speaking at a public forum on mental health in Accra yesterday to mark the global commemoration of this year’s World Mental Health Day.
He said mental health was not all about madness but also took the form of mild, moderate and severe psychological disorders, including fear, stress anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and bipolar disorders, among others.
Mr Yeboah stressed that everyone was vulnerable to the conditions, hence the need for all citizens to become advocates for accessible and quality mental health care.
He said more awareness was needed to help dispel the myths and misconceptions surrounding mental health conditions which resulted in stigmatisation and other forms of injustice against patients.
The World Mental Health Day is marked every October 10 to raise awareness of the condition and garner support for mental health patients.
The forum, he said, was organised by GEC and the German International Cooperation Agency (GIZ).
The Graphic also reports that the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) has called for the swift passage of the Conduct of Public Officers Bill to ensure the culture of accountability and integrity among public officers.
It said that move would help address the perceived apathy towards reported corruption-related incidents involving public officers and appointees under the current administration.
At a post-conference to brief journalists on diverse issues adopted as part of this year’s Bar Conference, the President of the Association, Yaw Acheampong Boafo, said the GBA was particularly concerned about the country’s ranking on the Transparency International Corruption Index and the Index of Public Integrity, as well as the issues raised in the Auditor General’s Report.
The GBA therefore proposed that basic cultural and social norms, values of honest labour, decency and integrity must be imbibed in children.
“We must stop defending and covering up for persons, especially those in the public service, who suddenly become rich and acquire properties without questioning how they came by them,” Mr Boafo said.
Following his election as the 5th President of the country, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in December 2016 sent a caution to potential public office holders that, “If your goal in coming into government is to enrich yourself, then don’t come; go to the private sector. Public service is doing exactly that; public service.”
The GBA President said the undertaking by the President gave hope to Ghanaians of the emergence of a new dawn of politics.
The Ghanaian Times says that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, yesterday launched a project geared towards youth employment generation in the country.
Dubbed: ‘Youth in Agriculture for Sustainable Employment,’ the project which is being implemented by the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) in collaboration with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) is expected to generate permanent jobs for about 200,000 youth across the country.
As part of the project, youth who sign on to the project will be supported with land, farm inputs, crop seeds, fertiliser, and irrigation system at no cost but will be expected to pay back in kind after harvesting of their crops.
In addition, the government through MOFA will support with plant protection chemicals and mechanisation services.
The crops selected under the project include maize, rice, soya, and each of the 200,000 beneficiaries will be expected to cultivate about 10acres of land.
Launching the project at the University of Ghana Campus in Accra, yesterday, the President said it was important to stress that sustaining Ghana’s agriculture depended on the youth.
He said the youth were obviously the future of this country as such we needed to count on their vibrancy, fresh ideas, and innovation to improve our collect fortune.
Nana Akufo-Addo said agriculture which was a major sector of the economy awaited the participation of the youth both educated and uneducated.
He said the country was blessed with huge material wealth and vibrant human resources which remained largely untapped, however, the country could only make progress if it paid attention to this.
The President noted that the Asian tigers such as Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea, were where they are today because of the investment they made in the development of their human capital.
GIK/APA
Ghanaian press focuses on World Bank’s vote of $40m for farmers affected by dam spillage, others
