As a way of prudently managing the available already destroyed land, the Regional Minister and the District Chief Executive adopted a strategy to bring together the communities and hold dialogues on a zonal basis, resulting in two community dialogues at Poyetanga and Dorimon respectfully.
In addition to the dialogues, the district security council undertook a working visit to all the 3 communities to engage various stakeholders, including the community members, Chiefs, Traditional leaders, Security Councils, Assembly members, opinion leaders, among others to solicit their support to fight illegal mining.
All these meetings were fully funded by the District Assembly. The District Chife Executive also provided some funding to the Regional Security Councils to assist in the fight against galamsey.
The statement said the District also set up a Monitoring and Evaluation Team together with a Situation Room to receive reports of illegal mining for swift action.
inspection of galamsey sites by the regional minister, district chief executive and their entourage
thank you!!!!
Mr Edward Laabiir Sabo, the Wa West District Chief Executive (DCE), has commended the Community Child Protection Teams (CCPTs) for their efforts to flush out the negative sociocultural practices against the girl-child in the District.
He was particularly happy with efforts by the CCPTs to come up with child protection by-laws for gazetting to give impetus to their work, which is to protect and guide girls and young women to pursue their dreams to the fullest.
Mr Sabo gave the commendation in a statement made on his behalf by Mr Martin K. Berisie, an Assistant Director, during a learning event in Wechiau in the Wa West District of the Upper West Region.
The CCPTs were formed by the Social Initiative for Literacy and Development Programme (SILDEP) and Plan International Ghana across the Sissala East Municipal, Sissala West and Wa West districts as part of the implementation of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ sponsored Girls Advocacy Alliance Project in the Region.
The DCE commended SILDEP for empowering members of the Teams to sensitise their various communities against the spread of the COVID-19, of which the Assembly was highly appreciative.
While pledging the Assembly’s willingness to help gazette the by-laws when completed, Mr Sabo called for the need to scale up the concept to every community as it would help push the development of the girl-child and ensure project sustainability.
Mr Moses Dramani Luri, the Executive Director of SILDEP, explained that the learning event was to create the platform for CCPTs to share and learn from each other some best practices as they implement the project around the four thematic areas.
These are Child Marriage; Child Abuse and Gender-Based Violence; Commercial Sexual Exploitation; and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and Employment.
He said the community by-laws were to provide a legal framework to back the operations of the CCPTs as they strived to protect the welfare of the girl-child and ensure project sustainability.
Mr Vitus Sey Pele, the Wa West District Social Welfare Officer, said the presence of the CCPTs was changing the child protection narrative in the District with respect of reporting cases to his outfit.
He pledged to work more collaboratively with the Teams to curb child marriage, teenage pregnancy and gender-based violence.
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Some farmers in the Wa West District of the Upper West Region are taking to cashew farming in recent time after discovering the benefits of cashew farming far outweighs cocoa anytime.
The government of Ghana in a bit to promote cashew cultivation set up the cashew development project (CDP) in 2002. Many Northern farmers are venturing into the sector as a result.
Moses Dery Biekyile, one of the cashew farmers in Bankpama told drumbeats Kunta Lawrence that he started farming cashew some ten years ago. “We realized that if we farm cashew here in the north, it will go a long way to reduce our poverty and minimize the way our youth travel to the South in search for jobs” he said as he works on his five acre cashew farm.
Moses Dery is contemplating of increasing his farm size to ten acres in the next year.
Emmanuel Maaliyel also owns four acres of young cashew farm. He abandoned his cocoa farm in the south to farm cashew in the Upper West Region. Emmanuel indicated that getting the right seeds is their major challenge so far. “I traveled to Sampa in the Bong Ahafo Region to beg farmers to sell the cashew seeds for me this year” he said.
President Nana Akufo Addo on February 10, 2018 launched a ten year cashew development plan at Wenchi in the Bong Ahafo region which seeks to improve production, research method and processing technology as well as create market linkages along the production value chain.
Under the plan, MMDCEs have been tasked to oversee the production of seedling to boost production.
Mr Joseph Kambunaba, the Wa West District Director of Agriculture disclosed that the District has nursed 80,000 cashew seedlings at the Ga Community under the planting for Export and Rural Development which will be distributed to cashew farmers in the District for free.
“We actually targeted 120,000 seedlings this year, but because time is not on our side we had nursed the 80,000 for now, I went to Sampa with the DCE to buy the seeds”, he said
Mr Kambunaba advised the youths to stop migrating to urban areas in search of greener pastures but rather venture into cashew farming to ameliorate their situations. “A bag of cocoa is ¢650 and one bag of cashew is ¢1,005, so I can just say that the North here we are now in good business and we have the land too, we are helping the youth and market would not be a problem”.
Source: drumbeatsgh.com/ Kunta Lawrence Nebadaar.
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The Wa West District Assembly on Wednesday donated some hand washing and assorted items to the Wa West District Health Directorate as its contribution towards the fight against the novel COVID-19 pandemic.
They included: 30 veronica buckets and 20 metal stands, 20 handwashing basins; 20 dustbin containers, two boxes of liquid soap, 20 gallons (two litters) of hand sanitizers and five packets of tissue paper.
Handing over the items at Wechiau, Mr Edward Laabiri Sabo, the Wa West District Chief Executive (DCE), said the donation formed part of the measures put in place by the government to control the spread of the deadly virus in the country.
He said the assembly was expecting more of such items from the central government to be placed at other vantage points such as the chief palace and market centres within the District.
That, he said, would enable the people to practice regular hand washing and sanitizer use to avoid spreading or contracting the disease.
Mr Sabo said some military, immigration and police officers had been sent to the District to enforce the President’s directives on the fight against the COVID-19 such as the ban on social gatherings including funeral activities, and social distances among others.
He added that the Assembly had also constituted community watchdogs to report people who were violating those directives to the authorities and said anyone who was caught in the act would be dealt with according to the law.
Mr Clifford Veng, the Wa West District Director of Health Services, who received the items on behalf of the health directorate, said the donation was timely as it would help improve the health security of the personnel and other people visiting those facilities.
He said the items would be distributed among all the health facilities in the district, which included; one District Hospital, 31 Community Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compounds, seven Health Centres, one private and one Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG) facilities.
Mr Veng therefore appealed to benevolent individuals and organisations to also come to their aid by providing them with more Personal Protection Equipment (PPEs) to help ensure the safety of the health service providers in the District.
The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, announced the closure of the country’s borders, partial lockdown of some parts of the Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions and ban on all public gatherings as part of measures to prevent the spread of the virus.
The Wa West District Assembly under the leadership of Edward Sabo Laabiir is set to distribute as many as 600, 000 cashew seedlings to farmers in the area.
Addressing press men at the Ga nursery on Friday, the DCE disclosed that some 2,940 farmers have been registered in the District through the District Agric Directorate to receive the seedlings for transplanting.
He further disclosed that the District has so far secured parcels of land, cleared them and will be establishing cashew plantations on those lands across the District.
Hon. Edward Sabo Laabiir explained that the PERD component of the Planting for food and job PFJ is intended to provide reliable financial booster to farmers as they grow older, and to help them prepare financially towards the tertiary education of their wards who would have gone through the Free SHS system.
According to the DCE, the nursery together with the plantations currently employs as many as 153 people who received monthly income.
He breaks the figure down into 30 for men and 123 women respectively.
This means that the PERD program has already employed citizens in District whilst thousands of others will be given seedlings for free, he indicated.
The Wa West District under honorable Sabo has shown focus commitment to the PERD program since it was introduced by the President, and has beaten counterpart Assemblies in the provision of these seedlings to farmers.
80,000 seedlings were distributed in 2018, increased to 500,000 in 2019 and further increased to 600,000 this year. But for the COVD19 pandemic, the target for 2020 was 1,000,000 seedlings.
The District Director of Agriculture and the NPP parliamentary candidate for this year’s elections who both spoke to the media and some farmers present used the opportunity to advise beneficiary farmers to take cashew farming serious, explaining that it’s a game changer.
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