Akwatia (E/R), April 7, GNA- Vice President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, has said that the government would provide the Electoral Commission (EC) with all the necessary logistics it needs to enable it to perform its work effectively and efficiently during the December general elections. He re-stated the government's determination to ensure that the elections were conducted freely, fairly and in a most transparent manner and that the elections would "be the free will of the good people of Ghana".

Alhaji Aliu Mahama said this in an address read on his behalf by Mr Kwadwo Affram Asiedu, Eastern Regional Minister, at a durbar of Chiefs and people of Akwatia to mark their Denkyembuo (diamond) festival. He appealed to Ghanaians to exercise restraint and refrain from all acts and utterances that could inflame passions and fuel violence. Alhaji Mahama urged communities to use occasions such as festivals not only for merry-making but also for planning how best to improve the quality of their lives by launching and executing projects.

On Ghana Consolidated Diamond (GCD), the Vice President said the divestiture process was on course, adding that sooner than later, an investor would be selected to take over the mines.

On a separate district for the Akwatia constituency, Alhaji Mahama said already the government had put in motion, the deepening of the decentralization programme with the creation of more districts. He noted that the government believed that smaller units would facilitate development and make democracy more meaningful.

Osabarima Kofi Boateng, Akwatiahene, in his welcoming address, noted that diamonds had been mined in and around Akwatia since 1924. He said the people made tremendous sacrifices for the enrichment of the national economy, by giving away their rich farmhands to mining operations.

Osabarima Boateng, however, regretted that from the colonial days through post independence era to the present, the people had nothing to show for all the sacrifices they had made.

"We have suffered total neglect and deprivation and we wonder if diamond mining had not been a curse rather than a blessing", since we have been bequeathed with mining pits, which breeds mosquitoes and putting the health of the people at risk". He said if the mining companies had cared to reclaim the mined-out areas, they could have been used for farming and other purposes.