Ghana needs people with more than academic achievements to develop

The Eastern Regional Minister, Yaw Barimah, has said Ghana needs people with a sense of commitment and dedication to move the nation forward.

He said the nation had got to a stage where academic achievement was not enough but people "with a will to die a bit for the success of the country".

Mr. Barimah said this at the inauguration of the Koforidua area board of the Pentecost Social Services (PENTSOS) at Koforidua on Tuesday.

He expressed concern at the growing tendency where people were expecting the development of the nation but had not resolved to contribute in any way towards that and called on Ghanaians to contribute their quota to national development.

Mr Bariman said as Ghana hits 50 years, lessons of hard work and sacrifices of other countries that had been successful should bear on the output of the citizenry.

He commended the Church of Pentecost for its response to the socio-economic needs of the community and suggested to the church to go into business ventures that would create jobs for people.

The Director of PENTSOS, Dr Yao Yeboah, said PENTSOS was established as a result of the church's philosophy of financial self-dependence.

He mentioned the establishment and management of 110 schools, a hospital, 6 clinics, poverty alleviation programme in Upper East Region and educational support for needy students as some of the achievement of the church through PENTSOS.

Dr Yeboah said until 2 years ago when government took over the payment of salaries of 60 out of 80 staff of the Alpha Medical Centre, the church was giving the hospital 120 million cedis to support it's internal generated funds to be able to pay salaries and allowances.

In the educational sector, the 110 schools including senior secondary and vocational schools had over 1,000,000 staff in employment whiles the health sector of the church has employed 152 people.

The Koforidua area head of the Church of Pentecost, Prophet Appiah Agyekum, said the Eastern Region had 11 schools including one vocational and one secondary school being managed by PENTSOS.

Source: GNA