She noted that most people, especially children, lose weight during the dry season and underscored the need for individuals to consume at least eight glasses of water a day to remain hydrated.

Madam Adzornu, who was speaking to the Ghana News Agency in an interview, said moist foods such as soups and porridge must dominate menus, and added that daily consumption of fruits and vegetables strengthened the immune system, whilst preventing respiratory tract infections, which often occurred due to increased pathogens in the dusty atmosphere.

She said proper food hygiene must be considered, and asked consumers of street foods to buy from vendors who operated in clean surroundings while also avoiding cold meals.

Madam Adzornu advised parents to ensure kids had nutritious and wholesome homemade foods in school, and asked them to replace unhealthy snacks and sweets with fruits and more water.

She also called on nursing mothers to breastfeed babies at regular intervals, and stressed on good hygienic practices which included hand washing with soap at all times.

Madam Adzornu said air-borne infections spread easier with the fast winds of the dry season, and advised the public against open sneezing and spitting at inappropriate places.

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Source: GNA

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The Ghana Water Company has said the plant had to be shut down because of the reduction in water levels in the Tano River.

[contextly_sidebar id=”py3x6S0Hv4txeiEXgnFO3JvoEvCLp0FI”]Explaining the situation on the Citi Breakfast show, the regional engineer for the company, Charles Brobbey said his outfit was working to bring some relief to the situation.

“Somewhere at the end of last month [January], we realised our water level was going down so we decided to cut down on production. So we did that for about two weeks and we cut down from 1.6 million gallons a day to about 800,000 gallons and day.”

Mr. Brobbey recounted that the company resorted to the cuts for about two weeks whilst halving the power production capcity intermittently until last Monday when they realized that there was no flow at all hence the shutdown of the Abessim water treatment plant.

He noted that company’s visit to the area indicated that harmattan had contributed to the dire situation but a usual suspect in issues like this, illegal mining, also reared its head.

In addition, “what we also saw was a lot of farming activity. They are a lot people now going into dry season farming and they are also competing with us for the water we also use for our production,” Mr. Brobbey added.

To remedy the situation, the Ghana Water Company has made available some boreholes, a few of which have been mechanised.

Mr. Brobbey also said the company has “tried to construct hydrants and some pipes so that people can go there and fetch with their containers. We went on further to procure some few Polytanks and site them at vantage points in town.”

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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The facility comes with an all-inclusive rate of 1.468 percent.

The agreement was reached at a ceremony between Ghana and representatives from 24 syndicated banks in Frankfurt, Germany Wednesday, September 21, 2016.

Locally owned bank, Fidelity Bank is also part of the agreement.

Under the agreement, Ghana is entitled to an extra 200 million dollars from the syndicated banks if the cocoa crop performs better and requires further funds.

Speaking at the ceremony, the CEO of COCOBOD, Dr. Stephen Kwabena Opuni, was hopeful the country will meet the output target of between 850,000 metric tonnes and 900,000 metric tonnes for the 2016/2017 crop season.

“We are confident of achieving our production target of 850,000-900,000 metric tonnes during the 2016/2017 cocoa season which begins in October 2016,” he stated.

He however decried the impact of the extensive harmattan weather which affected crop production for the 2015/2016 crop season.

“We must admit that our production target for 2015/2016 cocoa season has been adversely affected by the severe and prolonged dry weather conditions that lasted from December 2015 to March 2016.”

Meanwhile Dr. Opuni is confident the country could add at least 500,000 metric tonnes of cocoa in the next ten years following some improvements such as the provision of seedlings to farmers in the sector.

Ghanaian delegation present at the ceremony included the CEO of the Ghana Cocoa Board, Dr. Stephen Opuni; Deputy Finance Minister- Cassiel Ato Forson, Ghana’s Ambassador to Germany, Akua Sena Dansoaa as well as other officials.

The 2016/2017 syndicated loan facility

The facility is the 24^th since its inception in 1992/1993 crop year.

It has a four months’ moratorium and seven months repayment period which starts in February, 2017 and will be completed in August 2017.

The facility was oversubscribed by 640 million dollars.

A total of twenty-four banks are involved in this year’s facility with lead arrangers being eight .viz. Deutsche Bank AG, Natixis, Nedbank Limited of South Africa, Rabobank, Standard Chartered Bank, Societe Generale (SG) while the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd and DZ Bank were co-arrangers

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By: Pius Amihere Eduku /citibusinessnews.com/Ghana

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