Dunkwa (CR) Dec.18, -The
government will recruit 17,000 youth next year to undertake afforestation
programme on reclaimed mined areas across the country as part of the
implementation of the Multilateral Mining Integrated Project (MMIP).
The recruitment would be
undertaken by the Forestry Commission in collaboration with the Ministry of
Lands and Natural Resources.
Mr Benito Owusu-Bio, a Deputy
Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, made the disclosure at Dunkwa in the
Upper Denkyira East District of the Central Region when he and other government
officials visited Richie Plantation Limited, a firm that raises palm seedlings,
to inspect palm seedling nursery.
He said those who would be
employed under the programme would be distributed to the various metropolitan,
municipal and district offices of the Youth Employment Authority who would
raise seedlings and support the government's afforestation programme of recovering
degraded mined areas.
The Deputy Minister said each
person that would be recruited under the programme would be paid GH₵400.00 a month.
He said the afforestation
programme would provide alternative livelihoods for illegal miners who had been
rendered redundant following government's moratorium on all forms of
small-scale mining activities across the country.
He said the Government was not
against mining but wanted mining to be conducted in a sustainable manner.
He said government would offer
support to the Richie Plantation Limited under the Minerals Development Fund in
order to raise more seedlings for farmers as part of the government's
afforestation programme.
He said government would support
other firms undertaking similar projects in other regions to raise cashew and
cocoa seedlings for farmers.
Mr Richard Ekow Quansah, the
Chief Executive Officer of the Richie Plantation Limited, said the Company
raised 450,000 palm seedlings in 2017 and targeted to raise one million
seedlings for distribution to farmers free of charge.
He said his company had recruited
400 people out of which 150 were women who served as helpers at illegal mining
sites and 10 male illegal miners.
Mr Quansah said the project
started in Prestea Huni-Valley in 2007 in the Western Region and moved to
Dunkwa-Anyanfuri in the Central Region in 2013 with support from HIPC Fund.
He said it also support farmers
to clear their lands and prepare them for cultivation.
He said the Company received
three million Ghana Cedis this year from the Ministry of Lands and Natural
Resources for expansion of the nursery project.
Richie Plantation Limited buys
the hybrid palm nuts for 80 pesewas and GH₵8.00 per seedling from Ghana Samatra at Kade in the Eastern
Region and raised them at its nursery site in Dunkwa.
It has two irrigation ponds with
sprinklers that water the seedlings daily.
GNA
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