Parliament ratifies international agreement on coffee

Accra, June 9, GNA - Parliament on Tuesday ratified the International Coffee Agreement, 2007, with a call on stakeholders like the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, to do more to boost the production of the commodity.

Mr Enerst Debrah, New Patriotic Party Member for Tano North, said Ghana had fallen low in coffee production and a lot needed to be done to increase production to maximize the full benefits of the agreement. He was contributing to a motion for the adoption of a resolution moved by the Finance Minister, Dr Kwabena Duffuor to approve the agreement.

Mr Debrah said if Ghana was to benefit from the provisions of the agreement and share in research findings and best practices in coffee production, then more needed to be done to increase production. The agreement is an international commodity trade pact, which groups over 70 countries made up of producers and consumers of the commodity.

It also serves as a forum to share knowledge, research and best practices among other things, to sustain production. Earlier, Dr Ben Kunbuor, Deputy Health Minister, who was in the House to respond to a question, told members that the Bosome-Freho District, a newly established district in the Ashanti Region, had been earmarked to have a new district hospital to be sited at Asiwa, the district capital.

He said six district hospitals have been planned for the region with Bosome-Freho selected as the second in order of priority after Adansi-North (Fomena) District.

Dr Kunbuor said Fomena was being developed as a training site for middle level health personnel.

"Currently, it has the requisite infrastructure to train middle level personnel for the health service and it is envisaged that the provision of a district hospital at Fomena, will complement the training," he said.

Dr Kunbuor said provision of these hospitals was subject to the availability of funds.