Kweku Ohene Djan
The National Service Scheme (NSS) is set to embark on a school farming project in 2019 that will allow the organisation cultivate maize on fallow lands belonging to 100 senior high schools in the country.
Under the project, the NSS would provide the expertise, machinery and personnel for the cultivation and harvesting of the produce on a minimum of 50 acres of land per school, which would be shared between the schools and the scheme.
The Deputy Executive Director in-charge of Operations, Kweku Ohene Djan, disclosed this in an interview with DAILY GUIDE on Friday, December 14, 2018.
The aim of the project, he indicated, is to help improve the feeding capacity of senior high schools and also help the scheme boost its agricultural production capacity.
Mr. Djan also added that NSS had within the year harvested over 11,000 bags of maize from across its various farms in the country.
The 11,000 bags were made up of produce from farms such as Ejura which yielded 8,000 bags while farms at Yeziesi and Tantala respectively yielded 350 and 800 bags.
Other farm sites at Damango and Anuabin also yielded 900 and 600 bags respectively.
Mr. Djan also talked about a-20 acre sugarcane seed farm at Komenda Sugar Factory, which has the capacity of yielding at least 3,000 acres of sugarcane plants, a cash crop farming project that would be started next year.
The Deputy Executive Director in-charge of Finance & Administration at NSS, Dr. Gifty Oware- Aboagye, who spoke in a press briefing, also urged the public to avail themselves for valuable contributions towards the amendment of the National Service Act of 1980 (Act 426) which has been in existence for over three decades.
“We call on Ghanaians, especially people with institutional memory, to help us in this process. We ask that participants who would be attending stakeholder engagements to pay more attention to the process as well,” she said.
The acquisition of new information technology (IT), she disclosed, has been the major achievement of the scheme which has relatively reduced the chaos associated with registration of personnel and delay in payment and the collection of certificates.
Dr. Oware- Aboagye advised eligible persons who are yet to perform their mandatory service to engage the secretariat so as not to be found on the wrong side of the law.
She also urged employers to ensure that potential employees have undertaken the national service and also have a certificate to show before they are offered employment.
The Head of Public Relations at NSS, David Prah, expressed appreciation on behalf of management to all personnel for their cooperation in the year.
He urged them to work hard at their respective postings in the coming year and also wished them a fruitful festive season.
By Issah Mohammed