Chiefs in the Central Region have commended President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for introducing social intervention programmes to help reduce hardship in their communities.
They said the Free Senior High School programme (SHS), for instance, had extended education to the poorest among their community members who, hitherto, could only dream of senior high education for their wards.
Also, they said many of their community members had been able to save thousands of cedis due to the government’s decision to absorb the cost of educating their children
The chiefs said these when President Akufo-Addo visited their respective traditional areas as part of his tour of the Central Region last week.
The Paramount Chief of Breman Essiam in the Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam, Odeifuor Afoakwa III, who has two wards in SHS, narrated how the implementation of the Free Senior High School Policy had benefited him personally.
“When the one in Form 2 was at the JHS level, you had not come to power, so I saved against his education. So, when you introduced the Free SHS programme, I had managed to save GH¢4, 500. I used this money to buy 150 bags of cement to construct my building, he said.
The Breman Essiam Chief noted that monies which, hitherto, would have been used to pay for school fees of a few children of the town are now being channelled into developmental projects of the town.
“This education policy will lead to Ghana producing so many graduates in future. You are building a confident, elite society for the future. Every nation’s future is contingent on its youth, and not every youth is a youth unless you have been educated formally,” he said.
On the “One Million Dollar, One Constituency” pledge of the government, he attested that his town had been a beneficiary of the projects being implemented under the policy.
The Breman Essiam chief said; “if anybody tells you that one constituency one million dollars promise has not taken effect, tells that person it is not true because I am a living witness to them.”
The Paramount Chief of the Assin Owirenkyi Traditional Area, Nana Prah Agyensaim VI, also thanked the President for fulfilling majority of the promises he made to the Ghanaian people in the run-up to the 2016 elections.
Nana Prah Agyensaim VI indicated that “with the amount of poverty in this area, we are extremely grateful to you for enforcing the Free SHS policy, to ensure that our children can also go to school.”
The Assin Owirenkyi Chief appealed to the government for a Nursing and Midwifery Training College to be constructed for the area, saying “We have been asking for this for a long time. Sometimes we see a little progress and then it retrogresses.”
At Assin Jakai, Oseadeayo Kow Antwi Barima, the chief of the Atandansu Traditional Area, expressed the appreciation of his people to the President for “all the work you are doing to better the living standards of my people and the Ghanaian people.”
The chief appealed to government to assist the community to establish a cassava processing factory in Assin South, which, he said, would provide jobs for some 2,000 inhabitants of the area.
BY TIMES REPORTER
