The Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei Mensah has expressed concern over the state in which the region is lagging behind in terms of development.

According to him, the region is no rich as compared to the previous years due to the lost of its natural resources such as gold, timber cocoa.

” If I didn’t become the regional Minister I never knew we have lagged behind like that, when I was the Member of Parliament for Bosomtwe I thought the problem lies only in Bosomtwe. Nobody should say that Ashanti is a rich region,” he bemoaned.

“And I think we have to look at those criteria again, criteria we use to assess the poorest and richest region must be changed. People are assessing us base on the past cocoa and gold money our forefathers benefited,” Hon. Osei Mensah lamented.

“Now galamsey has destroyed our gold, Ashanti and Eastern which region beat us in terms of galamsey activities. Foreigners have taken away the entire gold concessions not and it is Ashanti’s who are mining now, “he stated.

“Come and look at the people doing galamsey in Ashanti they are include Mali and Niger’s you won’t get 10% of Ashanti’s who are doing galamsey, all our roads are deplorable even come to Kumasi and look at our roads,” he added.

Speaking to otecfghana.com, the Ashanti Regional Minister, Hon Simon Osei Mensah stated there is no even a single land left to give for someone to farm so if you couldn’t go to school you are lost so we have to change our paradigm.

“We have to change our paradigm there should be a paradigm shift from our land of development,” he emphasized.

The Former Bosomtwe Law Maker pointed out that the properties left in the region are only two the culture which leads to internationalize and tourism which is lake Bosomtwe and they are the things we need to focus.

“Now the major properties we have are our culture which leads to internationalize and tourism so these are the things we have to focus and develop more, “he revealed.

Mr. Osei Mensah however is optimistic that whiles the problems have being identified it can be solved.

“We have problem to solve and whiles and once we know the problem we can solve, my stands is that first step on a major step to any problem is identification of the problem itself and if you able to identify properly the problem definitely you will solve it,” he concluded.