Government on course to transform economy – Dr. Boamah
Dr Edward Omane Boamah, Minister of Communications, on Thursday said government’s agenda to transform the economy is on course, especially in the area of the promotion of local industries.
He said areas such as rice production, poultry and sugar production are witnessing massive investment from government.
Dr Boamah said this at the Greater Accra Region Edition of the Governance for People Forum in Accra, on the theme: “People matter, You matter, Everybody matter”.
He said government had commenced work for the construction of the Komenda Sugar Factory, investing more money in the production of local rice and unveiling a broiler production project to reduce the importation of poultry products.
He said with the government project to improve the local industry, it would be able to make 132 million savings in foreign exchange which could be channelled to support other sectors of the economy.
With regard to the energy sector, he said government had entered into agreement with independent power producers to produce electrical power to add on to the many ongoing works in the sector, including the diversification of the source of energy.
He said government would also continue to work in advancing the gas sector by developing more fields to be able to produce 300 million standard cubic feet a day.
Dr Boamah said the Information and Communication Technology Sector is also not being left out, as government has earmarked 97 million dollars for transformational agenda of the sector especially the E-transform agenda, including E-Education, E-Health and E-Justice.
He said about 780 Km optic fibre is also being deployed to help boost the sector.
He said President John Dramani Mahama is committed to transform the country as promised during the 2012 elections and called on the public to support the agenda.
Mr Okudzeto Ablakwa, Deputy Minister of Education, said government is committed to provide access to quality and affordable education for all.
He said with the Ministry’s project of zero tolerance for teacher absenteeism, it has been able to reduce it from 27 per cent to 11 per cent, adding that it would be eliminated completely in due course.
He said 14,895 excess teachers have been redeployed to schools with fewer teachers, while changing the method of the teaching of mathematics and science is underway.
He said government has fully paid its social commitment to the sector, including capitation grant, senior high school subsidies, Basic Education Certificate Examination subsidy and School Feeding Programme.
He said in 2015, government would distribute 500,000 uniforms, 15 million exercise books and six million textbooks to basic schools, including work books for kindergarten, nursery and lower primary schools.
He said the secondary education improvement programme would start next year to also improve standard of education.
Source: GNA