Story by Yaaba Yamikeh, Tarkwa
Gold Fields Ghana Foundation has supported GES and other public institutions in the Tarkwa -Nsuaem and Prestea-Hunivalley municipalities with logistics as part of its impacting lives vision.
The Foundation on Friday donated a brand-new pick-up vehicle to each Ghana Education Service office in the two municipalities to facilitate their co-ordination, supervisory and monitoring duties.
It also donated nine motorcycles to ministry of Food and Agriculture and Environmental Health departments.
Mr. Abdel-Razak Yakubu, the Executive Secretary, made the donations at a brief ceremony in Tarkwa where officials from the beneficiary institutions happily received them and expressed gratitude to the Foundation for the support.
He indicated that three of the motorcycles will go to Ministry of Food and Agriculture office in Prestea-Hunivalley, two to their sister office in Tarkwa-Nsueam and another two to the Cocoa and Extension Division of Ghana Cocoa Board in the same municipality (Tarkwa).
The Executive Secretary said each of the motorcycles will also go to Environmental Health departments of the respective municipalities to help strengthen their disease surveillance and community health outreach programmes.
He explained that the donations were ample demonstration of Gold Fields Ghana Foundation’s commitment to helping close gaps that will impact lives and create enduring value beyond mining for generations.
He therefore charged the institutions to ensure that the vehicles and motorcycles are used to improve educational, agricultural and health needs of the people.
Investments
Mr. Yakubu disclosed that the Foundation invested 1.54 million cedis in the two pick-up vehicles with the nine motorcycles also costing 293,600.00 cedis
He reiterated that although Gold Fields Ghana Foundation executes all kind of projects including water and sanitation, infrastructure and enterprise development, three key focus areas which attract heavy investment are education, agriculture and health.
It is as a result of this that he said 16.18 million out of 113 million dollars invested in projects over the years, had gone scholarships, capacity building, infrastructure, reading, training and other educational programmes to create opportunities for the youth in the host communities.
Mr. Yakubu intimated that successful implementation of these initiatives require strong collaboration with the institutions responsible for educating the youth and supporting them to effectively perform their monitoring and supervisory duties.
Effective supervision
He said the conduct of examinations such as BECE, equally require effective coordination, supervision and movement of personnel and materials, hence describing donation of vehicles to the GES offices as practical contribution towards assisting the Service to effectively carry out these responsibilities.
He also expressed optimism that the motorcycles will facilitate regular visits to oil palm and other cash crop farms in the host communities, including a vast oil palm plantation jointly set up by the Foundation and Tarkwa Prisons under their ” Prisons Agro-Support and Empowerment Project” for food security and skills development
“For COCOBOD under the dedicated leadership of CHED, this means a much further reach into our cocoa-growing communities. For the Environmental Health Department, this means a faster response to health concerns, challenges and emergencies.’, he said.
The MP for Tarkwa-Nsueam and a member of Gold Fields Ghana Foundation’s board of trustees, Mr. Issah Salifu Taylor, cautioned the institutions against seeing the vehicles and motorcycles as luxuries but tools for bridging the distance between their services and the people.
He commended the Foundation for the vehicles which he said were donated through his instrumentality.
More intervention needed
Mr Taylor however noted that in spite of the Foundation’s numerous projects and interventions to make life comfortable for people living in the host communities, a lot more needed to be done, particularly in its road reconstruction works.
According to Mr.Taylor, the deplorable state of Tarkwa township or inner roads are giving him sleepless nights with the constituents always complaining about productive hours spent in long queues on these road networks.
He consequently made a passionate appeal to the Foundation to team up with Anglogold and other mining companies in the municipality to help give the roads a face-lift.
The Western Regional Director of Education, Mr. Emmanuel Essuman, was handed over keys and documents of the two fully fueled vehicles which he he in turn handed over to the respective directorates.
Mr Essuman, who is also the Acting Prestea-Hunivalley Municipal Director of Education, pledged that the vehicles will be used for the intended purposes and properly maintained to prolong their lifespans.
