The National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Freddie Blay, has admonished the citizenry not to take for granted the current peace they are enjoying but reflect on recent happenings in some parts of the world.
“Reflecting on recent happenings in some parts of the world including some countries in the sub-region, must be noted that importance of peace is necessary ingredient for development,” he stressed.
Mr Blay was speaking at the 2019 Kundum Festival at Nsein in the Nzema East municipality of the Western Region on the theme, ‘Peace-Pre-Requisite for accelerated development’.
Mr Blay commended the chiefs and people of the region for maintaining peace, unity and tranquillity required for harnessing natural resources for national development and assured of the government’s fulfilment of campaign promises of the NPP by relocating the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) operational head office to the Western Region.
Mr Blay, who is the Board Chairman of GNPC, noted that the corporation would continue to empower the youth in the education sector because they were the future of every nation through scholarships to study Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics to fill identified professional gaps adding that, “What we have done is to relocate GNPC’S corporate social investment arm and the GNPC Foundation to the Western Region.
“In addition to the abundance of food and cash crops, the region is endowed with gold, manganese, bauxite and other minerals and has recently become the frontline of oil and gas production,” Mr Blay noted.
The Western Regional Minister, Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah, observed that inter-marriages had contributed to co-existence of ethnic groups ensuring peace prevailed and cautioned that it was not only the responsibility of the security services to ensure peaceful co-existence but the citizenry needed to appeal to the Western Regional House of Chiefs to use their knowledge and skills to settle land litigation and chieftaincy disputes to allow more investors into the region to accelerate development.
The Paramount Chief and President of the Nsein traditional area, Awulae Agyefi Kwame II, appealed to the government to settle the long standing land litigation between Nsein and Lower Axim since recent happenings indicated that Axim was trying to take some lands belonging to Nsein traditional area.
FROM PETER GBAMBILA, NSEIN
