Atabourso (B/A) May 3, GNA - Nana Joseph Ackesson, Techiman Municipal President of African Reafforestation Union (ARU) has appealed to government to offer scholarships to children of farmers engaged in teak plantation development.

He said tree farmers were contributing towards saving the country from de-forestation and the scholarships would motivate them to work harder. Nana Joseph Ackesson, Odikro of Atabourso, made the appeal in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Atabourso. He stressed that the children of tree farmers equally needed to enjoy scholarships as cocoa farmers, "since tree farmers are also contributing to national development in no small measure". Nana Ackesson said tree farmers faced a lot of challenges since it took 15 to 18 years before the maturity of the trees, unlike cocoa trees and this long duration of maturity was disincentive to potential farmers.

The Odikro disclosed that the union, with a workforce of 45, had planted 425 hectares of teak and commended the government for instituting the afforestation programme throughout the country. He stressed the need for the forestry division to make funds available to the union for the expansion of its activities. Nana Ackesson commended the government for the introduction of the national health insurance scheme and urged people not to politicize the scheme for the achievement of its aims. He reiterated that the scheme was beneficial to members and urged the government and managements of the scheme to help eliminate bottlenecks such as problems of picture identification, allocation of cards and the constant changing of contributors' cards.