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Government to provide EC with vital logistics
Akwatia (E/R), April 7, Ghanadot/GNA–
Vice President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, has said that the
government would provide the Electoral Commission (EC) with
all the necessary logistics it needs to enable it to perform
its work effectively and efficiently during the December
general elections.
He re-stated the government’s determination to ensure that
the elections were conducted freely, fairly and in a most
transparent manner and that the elections would “be the free
will of the good people of Ghana”.
Alhaji Aliu Mahama said this in an address read on his
behalf by Mr Kwadwo Affram Asiedu, Eastern Regional
Minister, at a durbar of Chiefs and people of Akwatia to
mark their Denkyembuo (diamond) festival.
He appealed to Ghanaians to exercise restraint and refrain
from all acts and utterances that could inflame passions and
fuel violence.
Alhaji Mahama urged communities to use occasions such as
festivals not only for merry-making but also for planning
how best to improve the quality of their lives by launching
and executing projects.
On Ghana Consolidated Diamond (GCD), the Vice President said
the divestiture process was on course, adding that sooner
than later, an investor would be selected to take over the
mines.
On a separate district for the Akwatia constituency, Alhaji
Mahama said already the government had put in motion, the
deepening of the decentralization programme with the
creation of more districts.
He noted that the government believed that smaller units
would facilitate development and make democracy more
meaningful.
Osabarima Kofi Boateng, Akwatiahene, in his welcoming
address, noted that diamonds had been mined in and around
Akwatia since 1924.
He said the people made tremendous sacrifices for the
enrichment of the national economy, by giving away their
rich farmhands to mining operations.
Osabarima Boateng, however, regretted that from the colonial
days through post independence era to the present, the
people had nothing to show for all the sacrifices they had
made.
“We have suffered total neglect and deprivation and we
wonder if diamond mining had not been a curse rather than a
blessing”, since we have been bequeathed with mining pits,
which breeds mosquitoes and putting the health of the people
at risk”.
He said if the mining companies had cared to reclaim the
mined-out areas, they could have been used for farming and
other purposes.
GNA
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