The Eastern Regional Minister, Dr Francis Osafo-Mensah has called for the necessary support for the National Mobilisation Programme (NMP) to go into large-scale cultivation of cassava in the Afram Plains for export.

He made the call when the new Director of NMP, Brigadier (rtd) Joseph Odei paid a curtsey call on him at his office on Tuesday.

Dr Osafo-Mensah appealed to Brigadier Odei to consider the provision of the necessary resources to the NMP to help process fruits produced in the Region into fruit juice and other related products to create employment for the youth in the region.

He said, the region has many farmlands abandoned by the defunct Workers Brigade and the State Farms and expressed the willingness of the Regional Co-ordinating Council to support the NMP to acquire those lands to create employment for the youth.

Brigadier Odei, who is also the National Co-ordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) said, the Government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is considering the merging of the NMP and NADMO.

The NMP has identified a number of economic activities in every region and district in the country for which the organisation would soon hold discussions with the concern regions and districts on how they could co-operate to implement those plans to help create employment for the youth. Brigadier Odei called on Regional and District Co-ordinating Councils to use their local resources to solve problems emanating from disasters and refer only those beyond their capacity to NADMO. He said the NMP was reviewing some of the existing national code to make it punishable for people, who put up structures and engage in activities, which tend to create disasters for their communities and the nation.

Mr Akwesi Owusu -Akyaw, Director of Operations of NADMO, urged District Chief Executives to assist their District Disaster Technical Committees with logistics to enable them to unde rtake the needed assessment of disasters when they occur.

Mr Owusu-Akyaw called on the assemblies to support the Committees to undertake education in disaster prevention to help reduce the rate of disasters.

Mr Patrick Aniagyei, Eastern Regional Director of NMP, called for the five per cent of the District Assembly's Common Fund for Disaster Management to be removed from the contingency fund and placed separately so that it would be available when the need arises.