GREL PROVIDES PROJECTS FOR SOME WR COMMUNITIES (PAGE 22, OCT 1, 2010)

THE Ghana Rubber Estates Limited (GREL) has initiated a number of development projects in some communities in its operational area in the Ahanta West District and the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipality in the Western Region as part of its corporate social responsibility to open up the communities.
The projects include the construction of a three-meter box culvert at the outskirts of Ajumako at an estimated cost of GH¢101,900 to avert the periodic flooding of the town and also to link up with other farming communities in the area.
The construction of the culvert will also ensure the expansion of the town which has a very beautiful landscape beyond where the culvert is being constructed.
The company is also extending electricity to Kyekyewere and constructing a two-unit classroom block, a KVIP public place of convenience and providing furniture worth GH¢41,000 for the Ankyen kindergarten as well as a three-unit classroom block for Dadwen.
The Human Resource and Administrative Manager of Ghana Rubber Estates Limited, Mr J.C. Garbrah, announced this at the company’s maiden “Day with the Press” organised at its rubber processing factory at Apimanim in the Ahanta West District in the Western Region.
He said the company was also constructing a 10-seater KVIP public place of convenience each at Anyano, Mpatase and Gyabenkrom.
Mr Garbrah said the company had constructed many schools in the Ahanta West District and the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipality.
They include the basic school complex at Nsuaem which cost the company GH¢200,000.
The Managing Director of GREL, Mr Marc Genot said 10,000 out of the 15,000 hectares of the company’s rubber plantation had been replanted, adding that the remaining hectares would be replanted in the next five years.
He said the cultivation of natural rubber was a permanent activity and ensured stabilisation of the rural population as many rural people were employed locally in the plantation.
Mr Genot emphasised that the mass acquisition of land in the Western Region as a result of the oil find would not in any way affect the expansion and development of rubber plantations in the region.
He explained that the mass acquisition of land was a speculative venture, adding that the oil sector would not employ many people in the rural communities and that those people in the communities where rubber thrived well would still be engaged in the development of rubber plantations.
Mr Genot stressed that cultivation of rubber plantations was now a very lucrative business and that people in the rural areas who were engaged in rubber cultivation had become very rich.