Mr. Francis Blay, Oti Regional Director of the Department of Parks and Gardens, says staff of the department lack essential tools and equipment to work with. He said tools such as mowing machine, driver mower, grass cutter, pruning shear, Lopper, hand trowel, among others were not available to work with. Mr. Blay, who disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview at Jasikan in the Oti Region, said although the department exists to develop and promote effective landscape beautification in our cities, towns and in the individual homes, lack of tools and equipment is preventing it to fulfill those core mandates. He said parks provide intrinsic environmental, aesthetic and recreational benefits to our cities, so there was the need for one at either Dambai, Oti Regional capital or Kadjebi for recreational purpose like the one at Ho, the Volta Regional capital. He said though they were to maintain and sustain all landscape areas on road medians, road shoulders and all roundabouts in the cities and towns, they could not live-up to that mandate because of lack of personnel. Mr. Blay said ideally, each office was supposed to have at least five staff, but that was not the case as some of the offices had only one staff or at best three and that did not augur well for effective delivery. He said erratic release of subvention to run offices was another challenge confronting them as they have to use their meager salaries to run office with no hope of reimbursement. Mrs. Margaret Agbemenu, a Senior Technical Assistant at Kadjebi Office of the Department of Parks and Gardens told GNA that they engaged in propagation of flowers, rooting of plants, grassing and maintenance. She said stray animal’s destruction of plants and grasses planted had been a worry to her, as the animal’s activities defeated their effective landscape beautification agenda. Mrs. Agbemenu said the department also existed to facilitate the rapid development of the horticultural potentials of Ghana, for the benefit of her people.
Source: Ghana News Agency