Place public interest above personal - Okyenhene advises appointees
The Okyenhene, Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori Panin, has advised public office holders to put public interest above personal ones and work hard to improve the economic fortunes of the country.
He said a strong and export-led economy would create the necessary conditions and provide justification for the youth to delight in remaining in the country to work instead of sojourning abroad to seek greener pastures.
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He said this when members of the board and management of the Ghana Export-Import (EXIM) Bank paid a courtesy call on him at his Accra palace.
The call was in line with the bank’s objective to broadly engage stakeholders as it financed export-oriented businesses across the country.
Amoatia Ofori Panin urged the management and board of EXIM Bank to consider their roles and positions as critical to bringing change in the economic development of the country.
The Okyenhene has personally started a campaign to get his citizens and other interested Ghanaians to venture into the cultivation of avocados in the Eastern Region and beyond.
He is leading a crusade for his subjects to cultivate acres of the cash crop which has medicinal values that have increased its demand across the world.
The eminent chief said it was possible for Ghana to take its destiny into its own hands by changing the poverty and destitution narrative and creating a better future for generations yet unborn.
Courtesy call in context
The Ghana EXIM Bank has a significant responsibility in financing the government’s industrialisation drive and economic transformation agenda, particularly the one-district, one-factory (1D1F) programme.
Since access to land for siting the factories is a critical factor, the board and management of the bank have thought it wise to build a closer collaboration with the chiefs and opinion leaders across the country to facilitate their support for the programmes, and it was in that context that the EXIM Bank visited the Okyenhene.
The EXIM Bank team has already visited other key stakeholders, including the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, in Kumasi, the regent of Dagbon in Yendi and the chief of Walewale.
It is also visiting some of the projects it has financed in recent years.
1D1F
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the GhanaEXIM Bank, Mr Lawrence Agyinsam, said the Ghana EXIM Bank was poised to finance export-oriented businesses, including the 1D1F projects that had export components.
He said since August last year, the EXIM board had approved about 34 projects, with more in the pipeline, out of which 15 were 1D1F programmes.
He pledged the commitment of the bank in supporting the Okyenhene in his campaign on avocado cultivation and processing, adding that the bank would be ready to consider other viable projects in the Eastern Region.
The Board Chairman of the Ghana EXIM Bank, Mr Kwadwo Boateng Genfi, for his part, solicited the support of the custodians of lands, including the Okyenhene, to embrace the EXIM Bank approach which financed viable export-oriented enterprises.
He said the board and management of the bank would work assiduously and prosecute the vision of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to transform the economy, create jobs and generate revenues for national development.