Ekwamase (Central Region) -- The Central Regional Minister, Isaac Edumadze on Tuesday called on Ghanaians to let development of the nation over-ride their political party affiliation.

Edumadze advised that, "we should only think of partisan politics when we were about to elect our leaders and after that we should close our ranks and work together for the development of the nation".

He gave the advice at a fund-raising harvest to support a junior secondary school project at Ekwamase in Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam District. The harvest formed part of activities marking the annual Akwanbo Festival of the people.

The Regional Minister said development of the communities would suffer if the people allowed partisan politics to divide their front. He announced that 500 million cedis has been made available for disbursement to members of Rahama Cooperative Farmers Association to help them improve on their farming activities, but cautioned that the loan, which would be disbursed through the National Investment Bank should not be seen as a handshake for supporting the government.

Hon Edumadze said some of the government's policies such as the Health Insurance Scheme and the mass cocoa farm spraying exercise have started yielding good results. For instance, he said cocoa production last year had improved tremendously.

He said 50 women in Ekwamase electoral area would be given some capital and gari-processing machine to enable them to produce gari for export. The Regional Minister, who donated 100 bags of cement from his share of the common fund to support the project exhorted parents to invest in their children's education, adding that the best legacy a parent could bequeath to his children was education.

Miss Eva Afful, assemblywomen for the area appealed to the government to connect the town to the national electricity grid. Nana Araba Mpagu II, chief of the town advised the citizens to take stock of the past activities and rectify their mistakes.

Nana Nketia Afful, Abontindomhene of Abeadze Traditional Area appealed to the government to pay compensation to people whose buildings were destroyed during the construction of a feeder road through the town.