By Mohammed Balu
Tumu, (UWR), July 26, GNA – Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, the Vice President, has promised to focus on agriculture by mechanizing and increasing technology adoption to enhance productivity for farmers if elected.
Dr Bawumia made the promise in Tumu during a campaign tour of Gwollu and Tumu in the Sissala area with the Bawumia youth connect, “It’s possible” agenda.
Dr Bawumia said, “I am on my campaign tour, and I want to start it from home, the five Northern regions to ask for the blessings of the chiefs as this election is going to be a historic one as we are going to produce a president from the North for Ghana.”
He said his major focus would be agriculture to turn the fortunes of farmers through mechanization and job creation.
He said, “In agriculture, I want us to move towards lime as fertilizer since the soil scientists have told us that lime is an effective form of fertilizer, which could reduce the cost of fertilizer and improve agriculture productivity. The good thing is that Ghana has a lot of lime deposits, which we will focus on to empower agriculture.”
Dr Bawumia said his government would mechanize farming to ensure easier access to tractors in the district to empower farmers.
“When I look at the productivity of our farmers, in fact, you know that the Sissala District has the best and the highest in terms of volumes of maize production in Ghana. When you look at the productivity you see Brazil is producing ten tonnes per acre and China is producing twelve tonnes per acre. I have a team working on how we can adopt the technology to help us double our output,” he said.
He noted that 200,000 farmers had been registered for the Planting for Food Phase II programme, adding the Sissala East had the highest number of farmers registered in the Upper West region.
On roads, the Vice President said, “The road network here leaves a lot to be desired and, in the meantime, we would ensure that the contractors that have left can come back to the site to continue work on the Tumu town roads. Already, Mawums is back and promised to work on the roads.”
Dr Bawumia said, “We are thinking about a digital future for Ghana, and I will make sure our town and villages will have telephones and networks so that we can be full participants in the digital society.”
This, he said, would help the youth to provide services to every part of the world, re-emphasising that about a million youth would be trained in digital skills as part of job creation.
Other policy initiatives he mentioned included the amendment of section 63 of the Chieftaincy Act to give more powers to the chiefs for them to deal with some of the cases that pile up in the courts, which otherwise could have been adjudicated by the chiefs.
He promised to pay a living allowance to Paramount Chiefs, divisional chiefs and Queen mothers so that they could help govern the country in a more disciplined manner.
“We would bring closer faith-based institutions like churches and mosques where we shall deal with them as partners. I want to designate them as development partners so they can be given equal incentives that we give external development partners like tax waivers and duties as our development partners get.”
Kuoro Richard Babini Kanton, Tumu Kuoro questioned why succeeding regimes since independence, including the current government failed to completely fix the major trunk roads linking Tumu to any major town within its tenure of office.
“We have always been told that all the major roads have been awarded on contract but what is delaying the full execution of these projects? I do not know and that is why with the short time left for your current government, I would be grateful if you could personally get the contractors to the site to continue with the stalled work.”
The Tumu Kuoro reminded the government that the Tumu township roads were another area of neglect and appealed to the vice president to use his influence to ensure the roads were done.
GNA