Encourage sweet potato cultivation - Minister

Mr Osei Agyei, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, has appealed to traditional rulers and other landowners to encourage sweet potato cultivation in their areas.

This, he said, they could do by releasing land on good terms to prospective farmers to start with the production of the crop which has a high demand in the world market.

Mr Agyei was delivering a talk on: "Policies of the Government", at a meeting organised by the Busia-Danquah Club in Kumasi on Saturday.

The Deputy Minister called on local producers to make good use of available local raw materials instead of relying on imported ones.

He pointed out that the government was making every effort to get entrepreneurs and organisations to take over all the factories on the divestiture list to make them viable.

"The Shoe Factory in Kumasi, he said, had been divested to a foreign company and that the company would soon install their machines and start operations adding that the government was also finding a company to take over the Jute Factory.

Mr Agyei said the petrol price increases generally was painful but stressed that it was the poor who was going to suffer if the increases had not come.

The Deputy Minister called on the members of the Club to form a co-operative and embark on farming activities to produce for export.

He said there was the need for Ghanaians to change their mentality and attitudes towards made in Ghana goods or else it would not augur well for the socio-economic development of the country, saying people should appreciate made in Ghana goods and consume them at all cost.

He said; "we all have to work hard to uplift the image of the government and the country in general. We all have to unite and work as one people with common destiny and aspirations".

Nana Safo Adu Amankwaa, Chairman of the Club, said they had established a fishpond at Fumesua and that members were looking for land to go into farming. .

He said it had been the policy of the Club to go round and educate the public on government programmes and called on the government not to do anything without keeping them informed.