MCE urges service personnel to offer committed and dedicated service to the country

Takoradi, July 28, GNA - Captain Anthony Cudjoe (Rtd), Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Chief Executive, on Tuesday called on national service personnel to use the scheme to offer unblemished and dedicated service to the country.

He made the call in Takoradi when he launched the Western Regional 2011/2012 National Service Week under the theme; "Fostering National Unity for Better Socio-Economic Development: The Role of the Service Personnel".

He said genuine service to the nation should be the hallmark of service personnel and service is to enable them to reciprocate the contribution made by their communities and the nation in investing in their training and education.

Captain Cudjoe said service personnel must sacrifice for the development of the country in order to bring improvement in their own living standards and that of their communities and the nation as a whole.

He said improvement in the national service scheme would come about as they devoted themselves to developing the country and desisting from taking bribes and indulging in other corrupt practices.

Captain Cudjoe said one of the banes of underdevelopment of the country was the lack of protection of state properties and as future managers of state resources, service personnel should be steadfast and dedicated to the scheme.

Mr Mike Totime, Western Regional Director of the National Service Programme, said the programme had been expanded to enable immediate past service personnel who were prepared to serve the Ghana Education Service in deprived schools and on farms of the programme to do so.

He said in the year under review, 4,929 mandatory personnel and 614 volunteers had been deployed in the region and out of this number, a little over 60 per cent are serving with the Ghana Education Service while 10 per cent are at the private sector with the remaining 30 per cent in the health sector, Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies and tertiary institutions.

Mr Totime said six regions including the Western Region have started have started serious agriculture projects which are being supervised by service personnel who studied agriculture in tertiary institutions.

He said the management of the scheme have accepted proposals of the regional secretariat of the scheme to join hands with its Central Regional counterparts to establish an expanded farm at Komenda.

Mr Totime said the Regional Secretariat is making every effort to ensure that user agencies and community leaders cooperated to provide modest accommodation for service personnel.

He said the secretariat had initiated moves to seek donor funding to construct 15-room transit quarters at the Regional Coordinating Council.

Nana Kobina Nketsia V, Omanhene of Essikado Traditional Area, who presided, advised service personnel to give national interest top priority saying anything that prevented them from doing so must be considered anti- Ghanaian.

He urged them to serve the nation in dignity because every position is a position of trust and to unite not only in name but in thought and action.

GNA