SIF completes 93 out of 110 projects for Ashanti

Ampabame (Ash), Oct. 12, GNA - The Social Investment Fund (SIF) has completed 93 out of the 110 projects earmarked for Ashanti, Mr Foster Boateng, Ashanti Regional Director of SIF, announced at the weekend. The remaining 17, he said, would be completed before the end of this year, attributing the delay to the uncooperative attitude of the beneficiary communities.

Speaking at the inauguration of three SIF projects at Ampabame Number One in the Bosomtwe-Atwima-Kwanwoma District, he said some of the beneficiary communities and district assemblies refused to pay their counterpart funding towards the projects.

The projects included three classroom blocks and offices for Ampabame Number One, New Adwampong and Asago built at a total cost of 407 million cedis.

Mr Boateng called on beneficiary communities and Community-Based Organisations (CBOs) who have benefited from the fund to pay their counterpart funding for it to be sustainable.

He said since it was a revolving fund, if a community or beneficiary refused to pay its share of the funding for projects, it could cripple the fund or deprive others from benefiting.

In a speech read on his behalf, Mr Bright Addai-Mununkum, Bosomtwe-Atwima-Kwanwoma District Chief Executive, renewed the appeal to parents to invest in their children's education instead of investing their money on funerals, which brought no benefit to them in the end.

He called on teachers in the area to report at school on time instead of coming to school at their own time or spending school hours doing their private business at the expense of the children's education. Mr Asumadu Basoa, Co-ordinator for Junior and Senior Secondary Schools in the district, asked parents to supervise their children at home to learn instead of engaging them in child labour.

He disclosed that the Cardinal Tomko Secondary School at Trede would soon be turned into a secondary/technical school to offer opportunities to pupils who want to undergo technical education.