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Upper West Akim District holds second Meet-the-Press programme

A total of fifty-two students from different educational levels in Upper West Akim District have benefited from the district level scholarship scheme to pursue graduate and post-graduate courses for the 2019/2020 academic year.

Date Created : 11/1/2019 12:00:00 AM : Story Author : J. K. Nabary

The first batch of the beneficiaries; 10 females and 42 males are made up of five under-graduates who were granted GH¢3,000.00 each and 47 post- graduates who also received GH¢1,200.00.

Mr Eugene Sackey, Upper West Akim District Chief Executive (DCE), who made this known at the Meet-the -Press forum held at Adeiso, the district capital, presented award letters to the beneficiaries to their respective institutions.

High cost of tertiary education, he said, remains a challenge among parents especially in the rural communities, hence the effort of government to decentralize the scholarship scheme for students at the local level.

Mr Sackey said the Meet-the-Press programme was to disseminate information and to receive feedback from the citizenry on issues that concerns their welfare and development adding that the programme also deepens the frontiers of inclusive democracy and sustainable local development and social justice.

Highlighting on key issues at the forum, the DCE said, the district continues to enjoy peace in the area through the combined efforts of members of the District Security Council (DISEC) and other relevant stakeholders.

This notwithstanding, the number of Police personnel in the district fell short of the required police manpower needs and this poses a serious challenge to police operations and appealed to the Police Administration to post more personnel to the area.

He said as at September 2019, the Internally Generated Fund (IGF) mobilized by the Assembly was GH¢573,350.00 representing 88 percent of the budgeted IGF of GH¢503,950.45 for the year ending.

On the Planting for Food and Jobs, he said, 3,344 farmers have registered under the programme since its introduction and implementation in 2017 with 1,496 farmers (1,194 males and 302 females) as beneficiaries.

Under the Planting for Export and Rural Development (PERD) the assembly held community/stakeholder sensitization programme in all the four Agricultural Operational Zones in the District (Adeiso, Mepom, Abamkrom and Asikasu), with a total of 1,362 farmers registered under the programme.

Also 6,000 coconut seedlings have been raised at a nursery at Mepom and 85 registered farmers are expected to benefit from the coconut seedling distribution, he said.

Seventy-four graduates have been employed under the under the Nation Builders Corps (NABCO) programme to help address graduate employment in the country and that the Free Senior High School (SHS)programme is being implemented in two schools in the district (Adeiso Presbyterian SHS and Nyanoah Community Day SHS).

Mr Sackey said a number of projects to address the infrastructure needs in the education sector in the district include the construction of three-unit classroom blocks with an office, store, staff common room and ancillary facilities at Kwesi Nyarko, Asukyrema, and Owrakesim communities.

It had also successfully carried out the 59th and 60th payment cycle of LEAP to 649 beneficiaries involving direct cash transfer amounting to GHC 101,850.00.