Pong-Tamale, (NR), April 26, Ghanadot/GNA--
Vice President John Dramani Mahama has assured the business
community that the government would continue to offer
the necessary support to sustain their investments.
He said the private sector was contributing immensely to the
development of the economy and that
assistance in a form of loans to develop their businesses would
be given to them.
Vice President Mahama gave the assurance in Pong-Tamale, a
farming community in the Savelugu/Nanton district at the weekend
when he visited the Dulan Ayana
Organic Mango plantation to see how best the government
would give him the necessary support to expand his
project.
The 120 acre mango plantation attracted the attention of the
Vice President who said, “You whet my
appetite in farming. People like you need
to be assisted for your business to grow so that the idle
youth would be employed.”
Alhaji Yakubu Ayana, an entrepreneur and a philanthropist lost a
lot of his investments in the recent
Tamale political clash but continue to
explore in other areas that would develop the region.
Vice President Mahama said, the NDC government would hold people
accountable for their negative actions that turned to disturb
the peace of the country or destroyed
lives and property to ensure that Ghana became
haven of businesses.
He said the Northern Rural Growth Programme that he launched
last Friday was a manifestation of government and development
partner commitment to fight poverty in the three northern
regions, which residents had to give their blessing to it.
The Vice President last Friday launched the Northern Rural
Growth Programme (NRGP) jointly financed by African Development
Bank and the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD),
and it is aimed at developing agriculture commodity value chains
to increase production in rural areas of the three Northern
Regions and contiguous savanna districts of the Brong Ahafo and
Volta regions.
The programme is also expected to provide production and
marketing infrastructure, improve access to rural financial
services and would fully integrate key private sector operators
in the value chain.
Vice President Mahama said a lot of investments were now coming
to the northern sector and called for peace and tolerance since
business was not developing in an atmosphere of conflicts.
He commended the manager of Dulan Ayana farms for the initiative
and assured him of government’s support to expand his project to
assist in giving employment to the youth in the region.
Alhaji Ayana expressed gratitude to the Vice President and gave
the assurance that he would try as much as possible to expand
the project to increase the current manpower strength of 79 to
about 150 employees.
He said he intended exporting the mangoes to Canada, Holland and
other European countries and appealed for support to increase
productivity.
GNA
