Nkoranza, June 30, GNA - Ms Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, the Deputy Minister of Information, on Thursday said the ministry would ensure more cinema vans are purchased to enable the Information Services Department play its role efficiently. She said the ministry has 40 cinematographic vans but they are not adequate to ensure effective coverage of the country.

Ms Botchwey was addressing heads of departments, staff and assembly members at separate meetings at Nkoranza and Atebubu. The Deputy Minister, who is on a two-day visit to the Brong Ahafo Region, said cinema vans play important role in the dissemination of news about government policies, projects and programmes, especially in the rural areas. She gave the assurance that the government would act within its financial constraints to make available tools to enhance public education.

Ms Botchwey said there had been a lot of negative media publications, especially by the private ones, all aimed at polluting the minds of the public. She expressed the hope that enough education through cinema vans with pictures of completed development projects and programmes would help reverse the trend. She said media practitioners and assembly members should consider themselves as partners of the ministry in disseminating information to the public and they must operate as such.

Ms Botchwey said journalists and assembly members should educate the public on programmes such as the National Health Insurance Scheme and the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy programme. At a meeting at Nkoranza, she called for the re-activation of silos built in farming zones to enable farmers to store their produce. She said she was not happy about the negative tag given to the recent African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) by the opposition, saying it was a shame for people to dwell on negative perceptions about the project, which is aimed at lifting Africans from the doldrums.

At Atebubu, Ms. Martha Larbi Agyemfra, a Public Health Nurse, complained about deplorable conditions at Atebubu Government Hospital. She said the hospital, opened in 1956, lacks many facilities. It has only two medical doctors with one of them as the district director of health services in-charge of administration duties and the other one in-charge of patients. It has no mortuary, X-Ray nor an ambulance. Nana Owusu Acheaw Brempong II, the Omanhene of Atebubu, appealed to the Deputy Minister to do her best to help rehabilitate the hospital.