Offinso (Ash), Sept. 3, GNA 96 The Offinso Traditional Council (OTC), has released nearly 300 hectares of land to the Offinso District Assembly to support the government's Youth in Agriculture Programme in the District.

The lands are located at Afrancho, Akomadan and Daaso. Mr A C Ntim, Offinso District Chief Executive, who made this known, said 300 youth were expected to be employed as farm hands in an oil palm plantation, which would serve as a source of raw material for the proposed Offinso Oil Mill Project.

He was speaking at the last meeting of the Assembly at Offinso on Thursday.

Mr Ntim said the DCE/MP Special Initiative on Cocoa, Oil Palm and Citrus, which was embarked upon by the Assembly was bearing fruitful results.

He said 800,000 cocoa, 100,000 oil palm and over 50,000 citrus seedlings had been raised from 16 seed banks established in the District.

The DCE said the cocoa seedlings had been allocated and planted in the farms of 400 beneficiary farmers across the District, while the oil palm and citrus seedlings were yet to be distributed to 1,600 interested farmers.

He said 3,000 persons were temporarily employed under the project. Mr Ntim announced that the Assembly received and disbursed 380 million cedis to 500 women ginger farmers to expand their farms as part of the government's initiative to increase ginger production for export.

He said the Assembly had also completed a number of development projects in the areas of education, health, water, sanitation and roads, while a lot more were still ongoing.

On the National Health Insurance Scheme, the DCE said 37,000 persons had so far registered out of which 20,000 had received their membership cards and were benefiting from the scheme. He said 1.3 billion cedis had so far been paid as claims to the scheme's service providers and appealed to the assembly members to encourage the electorate in their communities who had not yet registered to do so.

Mr Ntim said the introduction of the capitation grant had increased school enrolment in the District by 18.6 per cent, adding that the current total enrolment in the District stood at 35,996. He said two out of the five pilot schools for the Schools Feeding Programme in the District had started, while the remaining three would begin in the next academic year. Mr Ntim commended the assembly members for the valuable contributions which had ensured the smooth implementation of development projects in the district and advised all aspiring assembly members in the upcoming district level elections to conduct their campaigns in a peaceful manner in order to maintain peace in the district. 03 Sept. 06