Let’s project cities through festivals – Minister
Mr. Justice Samuel Adjei, Deputy Brong-Ahafo Regional Minister has urged chiefs and people of Sunyani to use cultural festivals and traditional events to project the area.
Mr. Adjei, who was speaking at a colourful durbar of chiefs and people of Sunyani to mark the Second Edition of the MTN-Suncity Fest on Friday, said by that, both citizens and foreigners would find it attractive, entertaining and educative to visit the town.
The durbar was part of a month-long programme of the 2013 festival, which started on September 3 and expected to end on Sunday September 29.
The theme is “Positioning Sunyani as a Modern City of Ghana” and aimed at creating the platform for all, not only to celebrate the City, a town known over the years as the cleanest in terms of sanitation among the cities of Ghana, but also promoting unity among its people through games.
Mr. Adjei explained that Sunyani had vast potential for cultural tourism, in view of its rich and diverse cultures and traditions and therefore commended the organizers for their foresight, vision and good intentions for the City.
The Brong-Ahafo Deputy Regional Minister also lauded the chiefs, elders, opinion and religious leaders and residents for their positive contributions to make Sunyani “what it is today”.
He noted that, modernity found expression in the prevailing stable and enabling environment for businesses to operate and thrive, tranquility for residents to go about their duties, availability of resources for infrastructural development and the general enthusiasm of the citizenry towards the progress of the area.
“Fortunately, Sunyani abounds in all of these factors and conditions and it behooves on us to harness and coordinate all these positive attributes to result in the emergence of a modern city”, Mr Adjei added.
He said the region produced food crops like maize, yam, cassava and cash crops including oil palm, cashew, cocoa and coffee that could easily serve as raw materials for agro-processing industries to add value to them to serve both the local and international markets.
Mr. Adjei observed that being a regional capital, Sunyani had the potential of becoming the hub of vibrant commercial activities, which would result in job creation for its people and provision of infrastructure and prosperity.
He therefore appealed to the city authorities as well as private developers to collaborate to expand the Bosoma Market to boost its viability.
He entreated the chiefs and people of Sunyani to fully cooperate with the Government and the Municipal Assembly to achieve overwhelming success in the current Street Naming and Property Addressing Policy implementation since “this noble initiative has immense advantage for planning and developing our cities and towns”, Mr Adjei added.
Nana Bosoma Asor Nkrawiri II, paramount chief of Sunyani recalled the recent incidents of armed robberies and killings in and around the municipality and appealed to security agencies to intensify their efforts to curb the menace.
Nana Nkrawri however noted that effective policing thrived on the effective cooperation of the general public and appealed to people in the municipality in particular and Brong-Ahafo in general to volunteer information to facilitate the work of the Police.
He said more educational institutions were springing up in Sunyani and therefore urged residents, especially the youth, to take advantage of that to be intellectually and professionally well-equipped to contribute to the development of the Municipality.
Nana Nkrawri also appealed to the business community to re-invest some of their profits into expanding their businesses to create more job avenues for the teeming unemployed youth in the Municipality.
The paramount chief said the quest for more businesses demanded more acceptable infrastructure, hence the Department of Urban Roads and other utility agencies must improve on their services to boost commercial activities in the municipality.
He expressed appreciation to the Managements of MTN and the local Suncity FM Radio for sponsoring the festival and commended particularly Mr. Ransford Kofi Antwi, Chief Executive Officer of Suncity Radio for his foresight and efforts to elevate the Sunyani paramount stool.
Mr James Bukari Basintale, MTN General Manager for Northern Business District announced that the Company was currently investing 105 million dollars this year in network infrastructure to provide improved services to customers.
He said in Brong-Ahafo, a lot of expansion work and upgrades had been made and assured that MTN was very committed to the provision of quality services to its customers
Mr. Basintale said for sometime now, the Company had been experiencing challenges like fiber cuts mostly due to construction works, intermittent power outages and permitting issues that impeded the provision of quality service delivery.
He therefore appealed to people in the region to join the Company’s public education campaign to protect fibre cables to ensure uninterrupted quality service delivery.
Mr. Basintale said in 2012 the company funded some projects including the inauguration of a 20-seater Information-Communication-Technology (ICT) Centre for Techimantia, which is serving not less than 20 basic schools in the Tano South District and a 30-bed capacity ward for the Sene-West District Hospital at Kwame Danso.
He announced that as part of this year’s festival, the Company had donated an incubator to the Asunafo North Municipal government hospital and a ventilator to the Sunyani Municipal government Hospital.
A sod-cutting ceremony had also been performed for the construction of a Community-based Health Planning Services (CHPS) Compound at Dinkra, near Nkoranza, to serve about 6,000 people as well as the inauguration of a six-unit classroom block with office and a store and a 20-seater ICT Centre for Dr. Saunders Community Model School near Kintampo, Mr. Basintale added.
Source: GNA