Lawra (U/W), Oct. 07, GNA - Mr Ambrose Dery, Upper West Regional Minister on Thursday directed all district assemblies to liaise with the Ghana Irrigation Development Authority to get designs for two dams and dugouts for their various districts.

This, he said would help the farmers under the small and medium scale dam construction under the community based rural development project to increase crop production during the dry seasons.

"As we are all aware, agriculture constitutes the mainstay of our economy, however, agriculture in this part of the country, is hampered by inadequate and erratic rainfall pattern, which must be supplemented" Mr Dery gave this directive at Lawra, during the annual celebration of Kobine festival among the chiefs and people of Lawra traditional area.

The Kobine festival is celebrated every year to mark the beginning of the harvesting season and also to give thanks to God for the good harvest of the year and to pray for more successful farming seasons in the coming years.

The Regional Minister said the Kamba dam, which had been on the drawing board for several years was a big irrigation project, which needed adequate funding and time to go through and urged the people of the area to exercise restrain while negotiations were still going on. He urged the people of the area to use their festivals to educate the people on outmoded practices, such as widowhood inheritance, female genital mutilation and discrimination against women in society. Dr Benjamin Kunbour, Member of Parliament for Lawra/Nandom constituency said he had spent 60 million cedis in sponsoring individual students in various universities in the country.

He said a total of 517 million cedis had also been spent on the provision of dual desks for selected schools in the district. Naa Charles Karbo, Regent of the Lawra Paramountcy appealed to the Ministry of Education to consider opening more schools in the district to save children the ordeal of walking so many kilometres to school. He also appealed for more boarding facilities for schools in the district to enable them admit more students into the senior secondary schools.