Accra, Sept. 12, GNA - The German Government on Wednesday presented a cheque for 623 million cedis to the National Catholic Secretariat Department for Development and Refugees for the provision of food to flood victims in the Upper East Region.

Dr. Marius Haas, German Ambassador, said he was aware of the deaths and the extensive damage that the floods had caused in the Region and called on the Ministry of the Interior to do a proper assessment to know the actual cost of the damage.

Dr. Haas said he hoped the effects of the disaster would be over very soon so that people could go back to their normal activities. He said he hoped by Friday, the food for the 21,000 displaced people in the Upper East Region would have reached them. Bishop Charles Palmer-Buckle, Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra Archdiocese who received the cheque on behalf of the Secretariat said the money would not only be used to cater for flood victims in the Upper East but all affected areas in the other two northern regions - Upper West and Northern.

He recommended that a task force, comprising all the Ministries should be set up to deliberate on how best they could tackle the problem, which had plagued the three northern regions. He expressed appreciation to the German Embassy for responding to the government's call for assistance for the victims and promised that the Catholic Church would do all it could to assist the victims.