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COCOBOD’s Kwame Owusu-Ansah Picks Up Outstanding Achievement Award

A Deputy Executive Director of the Cocoa Health & Extension Division (CHED) of Ghana Cocoa Board, Kwame Owusu-Ansah, has picked the Outstanding Achievement Award at the 2022 edition of the Ghana Cocoa Dinner held in Accra.

The award is in recognition of his contribution towards the rehabilitation of diseased and moribund cocoa farms in the Western North Region.

Owusu-Ansah joined Ghana Cocoa Board in 2009 as a Senior Technical Officer and has by dint of dedicated service risen through the ranks to his current position where he is directly responsible for the Board’s Productivity Enhancement Programmes (PEPs) designed to increase cocoa yields without expanding the hectarage.

He carved a niche for himself having nurtured and produced five best national cocoa farmers in the Sankore District where he worked for six years.

In a citation eulogising his latest accomplishments, the hardworking and enthusiastic cocoa extension prodigy supervised the implementation of the Cocobod’s national rehabilitation blueprint through aggressive cutting and replanting of cocoa farms in areas most affected by the Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Disease (CSSVD) in the Western North region.

Industry experts have linked his recent appointment from a Regional Manager to Deputy Executive Director to his sense of innovation, dedication and resilience.

Speaking exclusively to Cocoa Post immediately after receiving the honour, Mr Kwame Owusu-Ansah dedicated the award to his team of dynamic staff in the region who played various roles to ensure that the rehabilitation programme progressed steadily with significant successes.

“The project has been a great success so far. We are in a process of handing over most of the rehabilitated farms 2 years after we managed them,” Owusu-Ansah recounted.

He added, “We believe this will mark a significant milestone in the programme’s modules. I actually did not know that some persons were monitoring my efforts. I thank God and all my staff for the support and we hope to do even more for the sector.”

Below is the citation of honour presented to Mr Kwame Owusu-Ansah.

 

CITATION OF HONOUR – KWAME OWUSU-ANSAH

DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE COCOA HEALTH & EXTENSION DIVISION (CHED)

You joined the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) in 2009 as a Senior Technical Officer, posted to Sankore in the Brong Ahafo Cocoa Region. Within the 6 years you worked as the Officer in charge at the District Cocoa Office, you supervised and nurtured five National Best Cocoa Farmers.

You were later posted to the Western North Regional Office of the Cocoa Health & Extension Division (CHED) as the Regional Manager.

As the head of the Region, you led a team of dynamic staff to review the region’s plummeting cocoa production outlook occasioned by the Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Disease.

Your sense of ingenuity led to a roadmap that set the new phase of the National Cocoa Rehabilitation Programme, with the Western North as the starting point, in view of its position as the region with the highest endemic rate of the CSSVD.

Through your efforts to restore the region’s cocoa production fortunes under the rehabilitation exercise, you were given a target of 50,000 hectares of diseased farms to treat over a three-year period.

You amazingly exceed an initial target of 7,500 hectares approved for the start of the exercise by cutting and treating about 12,000 hectares.

Three years down the line, you successfully cut and treated about 33,000 hectares, representing about 70% of the target set.

As an apt leader, you explored innovative ways to create jobs for the teeming youth in the region under the rehabilitation programme and subsequently made a case for the engagement of some 17,000 weeding gangs which you created out of the existing COCOBOD sponsored spraying gangs in the region.

This acumen of yours received endorsement from COCOBOD Management as it was considered prudent. The Board was not necessarily supposed to recruit new weeding gangs but rather convert an existing workforce to render critical and related services.

This witty move became a model that was replicated in the other regions when the rehabilitation of diseased farms commenced.

Eventually, your effort was fully recognized by Management when your roles were expanded to reward you with an appointment as Deputy Executive Director of (CHED) of COCOBOD in charge of the Productivity Enhancement Programmes (PEPs).

COCOAPOST did not receive the news about your new appointment with surprise having fully followed your great marks of passion and sincerity with which you discharged your work over the years.

Today, you are being awarded the ‘Outstanding Achievement Award 2022’. We hope this will spur you on to even strive for higher accomplishments.

Congratulations Mr Kwame Owusu-Ansah.

 

David Asare Oduro
Source Cocoa Post
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