Afife Dam rehabilitated to increase rice cultivation

Dzodze, Sept 26, GNA - A Chinese firm, Sadong Geo-Minerals International, has started rehabilitation works on the Adzoatsi Dam serving the Afife rice farm in the Ketu District under an agreement with the Ghana government.

Mr Justice Cudjoe, the Ketu District Chief Executive, said this at a durbar of chiefs and people of Dzodze to mark their annual "Deza" Oil Palm festival at Dzodze on Saturday.

He said the project, which would boost rice production at the Afife irrigation fields, would be completed within 10 months. Mr Cudjoe said plans were underway for the repair of the Kplikpa Dam, also in the district, to water an 800-acre plot of land for the cultivation of an early maturing high content cassava variety under the President's Special Initiative (PSI) on cassava.

He asked the people to unite and take advantage of the opportunities being created by government.

Mr Kofi Dzamesi, the Volta Regional Minister, told the people to take advantage of the feeding programme under the Capitation Grant to get their children enrolled.

He said a four billion-cedi assembly hall would be constructed for the Dzodze-Penyi Secondary School and telephone would be extended to Dzodze, Anolga, Agbozume and Kadjebi soon.

Dzodze, popular for its oil palm industry in the post, still has prospects for an oil palm project, a scientist has said. Mr Sephen Appiah, a research scientist at the Oil Palm Research Institute (OPRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), told the GNA in an interview that the land was no longer fertile for en-block cultivation of the oil palm.

''An exercise conducted by the CISR and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture for the PSI found out that only low lying areas have high water retention capacities suitable for the project,'' he said