Akrodie (B/A) June 26, GNA - Mr George Yaw Boakye, Asunafo District Chief Executive, has expressed regret about the increasing apathy among the people in the district towards communal labour and the implementation of government programmes aimed at improvement in their living standards. He said the District Assembly was bracing to deal ruthlessly with those who would take the law into their own hands with impunity.

Mr Boakye was speaking at a durbar of the chiefs and people of Akrodie in honour of a British family currently assisting in the development of the Integrated Community Centre for Employable Skills (ICCES) in the town. A member of the family, Mr. Chris Holden of the internationally recognized Students Youth Travel Voluntary Organization (SYTO), is constructing an ultra-modern workshop valued at 185 million cedis for the Centre.

The District Chief Executive lauded the contributions of the Holden family and appealed to the people to reciprocate the gesture by strengthening their maintenance culture in order to derive maximum benefits from the facility. The Brong Ahafo Regional ICCES Coordinator, Mr. Edmund Frimpong said the project was aimed at exposing Junior Secondary School graduates in the area to employable skills. He tasked the community to take full advantage of the facility to train as many youth as possible in employable skills.

Mr B.K. Asomaning, an Assistant Director at the Asunafo District Education Office, underscored the inseparable link between vocational/technical skills and the nation's quest to become a middle level income country.

The Akwamuhene of Akrodie and Acting President of the Akrodie Traditional Council, Nana Awuah Asibuo, expressed gratitude to SYTO for choosing Akrodie as its first stop in the district and pledged the support of the people for the project.

The Akrodie ICCES Centre Manager, Mr. Gabriel Nyarko, announced that the school, which was started in a single classroom in 2001, could now accommodate Junior Secondary School products in the district and beyond. He said the Centre was dedicated to the moral and academic upbringing of the youth to help curtail their drift to the cities in search of non-existing white-collar jobs.

Nana Osei Daah, Chief of Konkromase, near Kumasi, expressed optimism that the youth would eventually stay at home and assist in the community's development. Mrs. Hellen Holden was installed Nkosuohemaa of Akrodie under the stool name of Akosua Nyarko I.