District Assemblies contribute funds to support agriculture in YEP

WA, Dec. 22, GNA - Five of the eight districts in the Upper West Region contributed a total of 847 million cedis from their share of the District Assemblies Common Fund to support the agricultural module of the Youth Employment Programme (YEP) in the farming season that had just ended.

Lawra District contributed the largest amount of 257 million cedis for pig rearing, Sissala West gave out 200 million cedis, Jirapa/Lambussie supported with 150 million cedis while Wa East and Nadowli districts contributed 120 million cedis and 100 million cedis respectively. Wa Municipal Assembly assisted the programme with three tractors and three drums of diesel and Sissala East released a tractor and bullock ploughs to prepare the land for the young farmers on credit while the level and form of contribution of the Wa West District was not yet known.

Mr Mohammed A. Sidik, Upper West Regional Regional Liaison Officer of the YEP who made this known in an interview with the Ghana News Agency at Wa, said each of the Municipal and district Assemblies was expected release 15 per cent of its one quarter common fund to kick start the agricultural component of the programme. He said a total of 2,068 youths were engaged in the Agricultural module in the region and those who went into crop production cultivated a total of 2,500 hectares of various species of maize during the farming season.

Although the agricultural programme took off late due to the late arrival of seeds in the middle of July, he said an evaluation undertaken by his outfit showed that some of the districts especially, Sissala East, Sissala West, Wa East and Wa West Districts recorded good harvests. Mr Sidik could not tell how the beneficiaries of the program would repay the money spent on them, which were loans and did not also know whether the money would attract interests since no guidelines on mode of repayment had been issued. He appealed to the national headquarters of the programme to allow them to purchase seeds from local sources in order to minimize delays and make the programme more sustainable.