Use festivals to raise funds for development projects - Chief

Nana Oduro Kwarteng, Chief Director of Local Government and Rural Development, has urged Ghanaians to use festival celebrations to mobilize resources to support self-help development projects.

He said celebrations of festivals were essentially meant to assist the citizenry to take stock of the past and plan towards the coming years. Nana Kwarteng, who is also Gyantuahene of Swedruman Council of Chiefs, made this known to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview at Agona Swedru, in connection with the celebration of the Annual Akwambo festival of the chiefs and people of Agona Swedru.

The week-long festival that started on last Sunday, 12 August, 2012 under the theme, "Equipping the youth for future development” will end on August 19, 2012.

He said the celebration was primarily to raise money from citizens home and abroad and corporate bodies to support education in Agona Swedru.

Nana Kwarteng said the Swedruman Council would also construct an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) center at Agona Swedru, to address computer illiteracy.

The Chief Director said the Chiefs would collaborate with the government and Non -Governmental Organizations (NGOs), to create an enabling environment to help improve the socio-economic condition of the people.

Nana Kwarteng outlining some of the programmes of the festival said on Wednesday, the chiefs and Asafo companies would walked through the principal streets of Agona Swedru amidst drumming and dancing to the sacred groove of their ancestors.

He said the planning committee had extended an invitation to President John Dramani Mahama to grace the occasion to climax the festival on Saturday, 18, 2012.

Nana Ama Adoma, newly installed Safohenema of Agona Swedru expressed concern about the increasing incidence of teenage pregnancy in the Municipality.

She called on mothers to teach their daughters sex education to enable them to enhance their education sex to avoid unwanted pregnancies. Nana Adoma called on the people to keep their environment clean by refraining from throwing rubbish indiscriminately into gutters, to avert the outbreak of an epidemic.