Government will soon enact a legislation to back the free senior high education policy. The law will seek also to compel parents and guardians to enrol all their school going age in school with the ultimate aim of addressing the problem of school drop out. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo disclosed this at Beposo in the Sekyere Central District of Ashanti.
President Akufo-Addo was addressing a durbar of the chiefs and people of Beposo held in his honour on day two of his working tour of that region.
On day two of the Ashanti Regional tour, President Akufo-Addo first paid a courtesy call on the Omamhene of Nsuta, Nana Adu Agyei Bonsafo.
Accompanied by a host of minister of state including the Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr. Osei Afriyie Akoto, President Akufo-Addo visited the commercial farm of a member of the Council of State, Nana Owusu Achiaw Brempong, at Nkujua Aframso in the Sekyere Central District.
The farm comprises a 400-acre fall army worms resistant Maize variety, another 150- acre conventional Maize farm and a maize drying facility.
Also on the complex is a centalized mechanized irrigation system that takes its water source from a small dam he has built from his own resources with the support from collaborators in the United States of America.
He is currently preparing a 19-acre land for a dry season vegetable farm under irrigation. Nana Owusu Achiaw Brempong expressed excitement that the Head of State had to familiarize himself with his farm being cultivated under the Planting for Food and Jobs initiative.
President Akufo-Addo entreated the Minister for Food and Agric to liase with Nana Owusu Achiaw to import a quantity of the fall army worm-resistant maize for local production towards solving the fall army worms menace.
President Akufo-Addo visited also, the Rockland Farms at Ankamadoa also in the Sekyere Central District.
The farm, owned by Madam Afia Nkansah in 2013 with eight thousand birds which number has since increased to about 60 thousand with plans for and expansion to include guinea fowls and poultry feed production.
Madam Afia Nsia appealed for government’s financial support in the project’s expansion drive under the One-District-One-Factory policy. President Akufo-Addo urged her to submit a proposal to his office for consideration.
The day’s activities ended at Beposo where a Durbar of the chiefs and people had been organized in honour of the President.
The Omanhene, Nana Boamah Kwabi, told President Akufo-Addo that, in keeping to his promise to then candidate Akufo-Addo during the 2016 electioneering to support his policy initiatives, the Beposo traditional Council has already released large acreage of land to the Ashanti Regional Cahirman of the New Patroatic Party, (NPP) Bernard Antwi Boasiako, the Member of the Council of State for Ashanti and others for commercial farming under the Planting for Food and Jobs while another 400 acres of land has been reserved at Beposo for the One-District-One-Factory project.
Nana Boamah Kwabi, just like the Nsutamanhene, appealed to government to upgrade the roads that lead to the farming areas to boost farming.
In a remark, President Akufo-Addo thanked the Beposohene in particular for the unflinching support to government so far and assured that contracts have already been awarded for construction of some of the roads mentioned.
President Akufo-Addo disclosed that government plans to continue with the Rural Electrification Programme to eventually hook every community in the country to the national grid.
Touching on the free secondary education policy, President Akufo-Addo announced that a law will soon be enacted to back it and to compel parents to send their wards to school.
