Bolgatanga (Upper East ) 3rd May ?99

Regional ministers at the end of a five-day conference in Bolgatanga have pledged to support the youth in agriculture programme and ensure its successful implementation.

In a communique, the ministers lauded the programme, initiated by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, as a viable means of addressing youth unemployment in the country.

"Conference is satisfied that the programme can effectively solve the seemingly intractable problems of funding, marketing and post-harvest losses which plague the agriculture industry," the ministers said.

The communique said the conference took particular note of concerns about the activities of alien herdsmen, and resolved that adequate measures would be taken to solve the problem once and for all.

It further stated that the ministers, taking note of the depletion of the country's forests, recommended that a more aggressive and pragmatic forest management programme be adopted to halt the trend.

Other issues in the communique include the millennium bug problem, contract administration, manpower planning, tourism development and the members of parliament constituency fund.

The ministers acknowledged that the role of manpower planning in the attainment of Ghana's vision 2020 objectives calls for effective co-ordination between the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare, training institutions and the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), with the view to institute measures that would prioritise the country's manpower needs.

The communique said the ministers also urged district assemblies to recruit students of tertiary institutions to assist, during holidays, in updating data required by the assemblies.

It called on district assemblies to improve access roads to tourist sites, commit adequate resources to the tourism sector, and make efforts to modify traditional practices that hinder tourism development in their respective areas.

The conference resolved to actively monitor the disbursement and use of the MP's constituency fund as well as the productivity improvement and income-generation fund, also known as the poverty alleviation fund, to ensure strict compliance with laid-down regulations.

The frequency of the regional ministers conference has been reviewed from three to two meetings annually, and the 15th meeting would take place at Sunyani next October, the communique announced.

Mr Kwamena Ahwoi, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, said it would be necessary to let traditional rulers, opinion leaders, and internal collaborators of alien herdsmen to appreciate the gravity of the destructive effects the activities of those herdsmen unleash on the environment.

"What we need is a national policy, regional monitoring, and district and community implementation," he emphasised.