Government Focuses On Rural Industries

The Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Captain Nkrabea Effah-Darteh (Rtd), has said no nation enjoys sustainable development without developing its trade and industry.

He was opening a two-day follow-up workshop on the Rural Trade and Industry Promotion Programme (RUTIPP)in Sunyani on Monday. It is an initiative by the MOTI to assess obstacles to sustainable development of rural trade and industry to rectify the situation.

"It is for this reason that the RUTIPP initiative is very paramount to our national development cause, as it will boost the incomes of our rural dwellers who produce the bulk of the country's wealth but live in extreme poverty."

Capt Effah-Darteh said post harvest losses and low incomes from rural ventures would be a thing of the past if the participants come out with workable schemes. "The rural folks have suffered too long and it is about time we the privileged few compensate them for the sacrifices they are making to national development, by giving them workable wealth creation schemes". Mr Boniface Abu-Bakar Saddique, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry (MOTI), on his part said District offices of the National Board for Small-Scale Industries (NBSSI) would be opened throughout the country to promote sustainable grassroots industrialisation and entrepreneurial development.

He said it is part of the government's rural poverty reduction and democratic consolidation policies.

"The NPP government believes that when the majority of our rural folks are helped out of the drudgery of poverty through the promotion of trade and industry, they will become more independent and assertive and thus have greater say in governance and make them less vulnerable to political manipulation". It was attended by about 140 participants from MOTI, Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the Association of Small-Scale Industries (ASSI) and District Chief Executives among others.Mr Saddique said the 700 billion-cedi Emergency Relief Fund launched recently and the Presidential Initiatives on the export of starch and garment products are demonstrations of the government's determination to alleviate poverty, especially in rural areas. He said with small scale entrepreneurs, including farmers, constituting about 40 per cent of the self employed in urban areas and over 70 per cent in rural communities, "it is imperative that initiatives such as RUTIPP are instituted to enable them to make greater contributions to national development".

Mr Martin Wilde, Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAF) representative in Ghana said the Foundation is supporting the initiative because of the link between economic empowerment and democracy.