Strengthen borders to stop criminals from entering country,— Kumi-Richardson
The Bono Regional Minister, Mrs Evelyn Kumi-Richardson, has charged staff of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) to strengthen their operations at their respective border towns to stop criminals and illegal foreigners from entering the country.
She said measures had to be adopted to stop foreigners from entering the country illegally to engage in criminal activities such as kidnapping, armed robbery, illegal lumbering and mining in addition to taking over retail businesses, which were solely meant for Ghanaians.
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Mrs Kumi-Richardson, who was addressing staff of the GIS and Dormaa Municipal Assembly as part of her familiarisation tour of the region, said the vigilance of the GIS and citizens of the Dormaa Municipality, which shared a border with La Cote d’Ivoire, could help avert the illegal entry of criminals into the country through the area.
She was also unhappy about illegal lumbering in the area, explaining that such was undermining development and appealed to the public to use the right channels to harvest lumber in the various forest reserves.
Mrs Kumi-Richardson challenged the staff of the various assemblies to work hard to generate more revenue to finance the various assembly development projects.
Tour
The minister and her deputy, Mr Siaka Stevens, both of whom assumed duty after the Bono East and Ahafo regions had been carved out of the erstwhile Brong Ahafo Region, embarked on the familiarisation tour to inspect ongoing projects in the region.
Their tour last Monday took them to the Dormaa Central Municipality and the Dormaa East and Dormaa West districts, during which they inspected and inaugurated some projects.
The projects inspected were the Dormaa-Ahenkro Youth Resource Centre, which is 85 per cent complete.
The centre consists of about 15 different facilities, including long tennis courts, volleyball and football pitches and changing rooms.
Other projects inspected include a 1,000 tonnes grains warehouse and ancillary structures, which was also 85 per cent complete, and a fully furnished six-unit classroom block at Yawbofokrom, also in the Dormaa Central Municipality.
In the Dormaa West Municipality, the minister inaugurated four semi-detached staff bungalows for heads of decentralised departments of the assembly and a fully furnished market.
The minister and her entourage also inspected the construction of the Nkrankwanta District Police Station, which is expected to be handed over to the police command next month.
Courtesy calls
As part of the tour, the minister and her entourage paid courtesy calls on the various traditional councils to officially introduce herself and thank them for their unflinching support during her nomination and vetting. She also solicited their support in the running of her administration.
Additional infrastructure
Responding to some of the concerns raised by the Krontihene of the Dormaa Traditional Area, Barimah Ansu Agyei, the minister pledged to ensure additional infrastructure for the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) satellite campus at Dormaa-Ahenkro.
Mrs Kumi-Richardson also promised to construct a dormitory block for the Dormaa Senior High School (SHS) to help facilitate learning and teaching as there were limited infrastructure to cater for the huge number of students, in addition to the expansion of infrastructure of the Dormaa Presbyterian Hospital, the Wamfie Polyclinic and the Nkrankwanta District Hospital to ensure quality health delivery.
She said it was part of the government’s plan to rehabilitate the road network in the area to ensure smooth transportation of farm produce to market centres.