President John Dramani Mahama on Saturday announced the installation of Tamale’s first ever Catheterisation Laboratory at the Tamale Teaching Hospital.
Speaking during the sod-cutting ceremony for the 24-hour economy market at Kukuo in the Tamale Metropolis, the President said the Cath Lab; a machine used by doctors to treat blocked arteries, had been purchased brand new and would be installed at the hospital on Sunday, ending years of patients having to travel to Kumasi or Accra to access the procedure.
“Tamale has never had it. And so if you had that particular condition you had to go to Kumasi or to Accra. Today we bought a brand new machine for Tamale,” he said.
In a direct and colourful address to the crowd, the President used the occasion to explain what the machine does, warning residents against diets heavy in fatty foods that line and block the arteries, the very condition the Cath Lab is designed to treat.
Turning to agriculture, the President acknowledged the serious problem of food oversupply that has left rice and maize farmers unable to recoup their investments.
He said the government had already released 100 million cedis last year to mop up excess maize in the system, but noted that the Buffer Stock Company’s warehouses were still full as the new planting season approaches.
To address the situation more decisively, he announced a 200 million cedi allocation to the Ministry of Agriculture to go into the market and purchase excess rice and maize from farmers.
The produce, he said, would be stored and channelled to secondary schools, hospitals, prisons and other government institutions.
But buying and storing surplus produce was only part of the solution. The President said the government was also investing in processing infrastructure to create a more permanent outlet for farmers’ crops.
A rice mill is already coming up on the Yendi road, and a second rice mill is planned for the Fumbisi Valley, one of the region’s leading rice-growing areas. In addition, five new maize processing factories are to be established to buy, process and export corn flour, bringing in foreign exchange while reducing the glut on the local market.
“There is an export market for corn flour and we have excess corn, so we can buy it and process it and export it and bring dollars back to Ghana,” President Mahama said.
He expressed confidence that by next year the oversupply problem would be largely resolved once the processing facilities are operational and the government’s purchasing programmes are in full swing.
Richard Aniagyei, ISD
