Hajia Mahama, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, said it was possible for local authorities to create jobs in their localities that would provide a means of addressing unemployment.

She made the request when she launched the Promoting Mushroom Industry in Adentan Municipality Project (Promush Project), initiated by the Adentan Municipal Assembly (AdMA), to promote the cultivation of mushrooms in the Municipality.

She commended the AdMA for the ingenuity in conceiving the Promush Project, in light of the limited land space in the Municipality for traditional agriculture.

Hajia Mahama said [e1][e2][e3]the initiative demonstrated the viability of Government’s one district-one factory agenda.

She urged other MMDCEs to emulate AdMA in finding innovative ways of bettering the lives of their people.

She pledged government’s commitment to explore ways of supporting small and medium scale agro-businesses like those in the Promush Project, particularly those owned by women.

“Government will find ways supporting the project where it can. Jobs can be created, in partnership with the private sector, such as the CSOs partnering to implement this project,” she stated.

Hajia Mahama urged the women, youth and persons with disabilities (PWDs) in the Municipality to take advantage of the project to earn a living for themselves.

She also swore in a steering committee and project implementation team members for the project.

The Promush project is a three-year European Union- funded economic development project aimed at creating employment for about 5,500 women, youth and PWDs in the Municipality.

The project will be implemented and partly funded to the tune of € 160,000 Euros, by the Centre for Local Governance Advocacy, the Local Government Network and AdMA.

Madam Maria-Louisa Troncoso, Head of Governance section of the delegation of the European Union to Ghana, which funded €660,000 Euros of the €820,000 Euro-project, said the funding was part of the EUs support to decentralisation in Ghana, which led to better democracy at the local level.

“It is our first engaging directly with local government,” she stated, She said the Union was keen to support the implementation of the project by facilitating training and other requirements for participants.

She noted that the need to create jobs was more urgent in light of growing unemployment in the country.

Madam Troncoso expressed the hope that the Promush Project would become a flagship job-creating project.

According to Madam Gladys G.N Tetteh, Deputy Executive Director of the CLGA, the lead implementation agency, the project was expected improve mushroom production in the municipality, by providing quality spawns (seeds) and modern equipment to farmers for production. It will work with both existing and new mushroom farmers.

While the market rate for production of mushroom stands at 6000 bags per cycle, farmers in the Municipality currently produce about 5000 bags per cycle.

At the end of the three-year project, production is expected to reach a minimum of the benchmark 6000 bags per cycle per farmer, and up to 15,000 bags per cycle, per farmer.

This is expected to improve the annual farmer income from GH? 4000 to GH? 30,000 by 2020.

On order to be environmentally sustainable, the project will also ensure that 100 per cent of the waste from mushroom production is used as manure for agriculture while 80 per cent of sawdust generated in the Municipality is used for mushroom production.

“We will ensure value for money in the project implementation, and make Adentan the mushroom hub of the country” she stated.