Festival Promotes Development - Mrs Benyiwa-Doe

A member of the Council of State, Mrs Ama Benyiwa-Doe on Monday underscored the importance of festivals towards cultural development, saying it cannot be over-emphasized. Addressing a durbar of chiefs and people of Mankessim Traditional Area to climax the celebration of Borbor Mfantse Akwanbo festival at the weekend, Mrs Benyiwa-Doe expressed regret of the attitude of people who out selfish interest used litigations to prevent celebration of festival and said such people do a lot of harm to their communities. She expressed concern about how Ghanaian languages were being diluted with foreign languages. �Some Ghanaians cannot speak a sentence of their own dialect without interfering with a foreign language,� she said. Mrs Benyiwa-Doe urged Ghanaians not to abandon the extended family system because it helped to keep families together. She said the neglect of the system had contributed to the ever increasing number of children homes and street children as family members� careless about the children of their deceased members. Mr Samuel Sarpong, Central Regional Minister was happy with the efforts of the Mankessim Traditional Council to promote education. He said government was committed to the delivery of quality education to the Ghanaian children who would support the government to achieve its aim. The Regional Minister said the Central Regional Development Commission (CEDECOM) had instituted a measure to support financially pineapple growers and the Coordinating Council was negotiating with a university of America for support for vegetable growers in the region. Mr Henry Kweku Hayfron, Municipal Chief Executive for the area expressed concern about traders taking over the streets around the roundabout for trading purposes and said they are doing that at the risk of their lives. He said the assembly is constructing additional stalls and walkways to prevent the traders from using the streets. The MCE appealed to the people to stop using the fountain being constructed at the roundabout as a place for displacing their wares as it makes the place an eye-sore.