Kumasi, July 3, GNA - The Rural Water and Sanitation Initiative, in collaboration with Rural Water Supply Programme, have since last year sunk a total of 1,776 boreholes in 21 districts in the Ashanti Region. Additionally, 33 hand-dug wells and three rain harvesting facilities have been provided to help supply safe drinking water to communities that lacked potable water.

Mr Kofi Opoku-Manu, Ashanti Regional Minister, who announced this at a Meet-the-Press programme in Kumasi, said the German Government and the African Development Bank assisted with the funding. He put the current water supply coverage in the region at about 61.2%, and said there was the need for stakeholders to support the government to expand the coverage.

On employment, the Minister said 1,523 youth had been engaged under the Youth in Agriculture Programme, adding that, since the beginning of this year, a total of 4,300 hectares of land under maize, rice and tomato had been cultivated under the programme.

He said 9,817 young men and women were also benefiting from the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) under the Waste and Sanitation, Policing, Community Teaching Assistants and Auxiliary Healthcare Assistants modules. On health, Mr Opoku-Manu announced that Ashanti recorded 1,449,260 cases of malaria in 2009 as against 814,998 cases in 2008.

He said the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) was, therefore, working assiduously to bring down the incidence of the disease. Mr Opoku-Manu said work would soon commence on a regional hospital project at Sewua in the Bosomtwe District to ease the pressure on the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH).

He raised concern about the increasing rate at which the youth in the region were getting involved in illegal small scale mining and advised them to avail themselves of the recently introduced youth in mining programme. Illegal small scale mining in whatever form was dangerous and must be avoided, he cautioned. The Minister pledged the government's determination to work hard to improve the livelihoods of the people by way of good roads, reliable electricity supply and good sanitation.