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Boti Falls losing its beauty, relevance …due to bad roads
Boti Falls
The Eastern regions’ tourism pride, the Boti Falls, the only twin water falls in Ghana is under serious threat of losing its beauty and relevance on the world’s tourism map.
The problem is not illegal felling of trees, bush fires or land litigations that have been a threat for its survival.
The biggest concern for tourists and other visitors to the place has been the bad road network to the Falls.
“Very soon, there would not be any Boti Falls in Ghana because there would be no access road to the place,”Dade Mantse Kwame Teye Okletey told The Spectator in a chat.
Dade Mantse Okletey made the appeal at this year’s Eastern Regional World Tourism Day celebration at the Boti Falls Resort last Wednesday.
“The road network to the Falls is making it unattractive for people to participate in any activity there”
The Falls has been created by the Pawnpawn River which takes its source from a mountain at the Ahenkwa-Amalakpo Forest Reserve before falling over an igneous rock outcrop at Boti Langmase, near Huhunya Forest Reserve in the Yilo Krobo Municipality in the Eastern Region.
The facility is located about 17 kilometres north-east of Koforidua, the Eastern Regional capital, about 30 minutes’ drive from Koforidua andan hour andhalf drive from Accra.
Due to the bad nature of the road, there have been frequent break-down of both commercial and private vehicles, school buses, researchers and tourist vehicles visiting the sight.
“The road to the Falls is so bad that visitors have refused to visit the place for fear that their vehicles would break down” he said.
He advised the government to turn its eye to the tourism sector, especially the Boti Falls to enable more tourists to visit the facility to generate income for the country.
Speaking on the theme for the celebration, “Tourism and Green Investment” the Dade Mantsesaid, his people could ‘green’ the area but the bad road network would make it unattractive for tourists to drive through it.
, Dade Mantse Okletey urged the inhabitants of the area not to leave the tourist sites in the hands of politicians because governments would go and come but the sites would still be there to generate employment and revenue for them.
The Eastern Regional Director of Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), Madam Dinah AduOwusu said the environment was getting degraded and tourist sites were also being threatened, the reason this year’s tourism day celebration theme was chosen to inform the citizenry to plant more trees.
She said the 2023 National Tourism Day celebration was held at Ada in the Volta Region and commended the Forestry Commission for providing seedlings to the Eastern region for planting to commemorate the occasion.
The Manager of the Boti Falls Resort, Mrs Irene AkuaDjandjoe also expressed concern about the road network to the Resort and appealed to the Assembly to rehabilitate it for commuters.
She said, Kingdom Ventures, managers of the facility had invested huge sums of money to bring the Falls to at least International standard but the bad road was posing a great challenge to realising that.
A driver, Daniel Teye who ply Koforidua to Boti said the fare is GhȻ 15.00 but due to the nature of the road they do not get passengers.
He said a journey of about 30 minutes sometimes takes two hours depending on the number of passengers in the vehicle.
Daniel Teye appealed to the government to come to their aid, saying he sometimes fear for the sick and pregnant women since it is very difficult to get vehicles to convey them to access health care in the city.
From Samuel OpareLartey, Boti Falls, Huhunya
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Prof Alidu Seidu files nomination for Tamale Central seat
The newly elected parliamentary candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for Tamale Central, Prof Alidu Seidu, has submitted his nomination forms to the Electoral Commission.
As of 10:00 a.m. today, he was the only person who had filed to contest the seat.
Nomination of candidates will close at the end of the day.
Associate Professor and Head of the Political Science Department at the University of Ghana Legon, Prof. Alidu Seidu won the National Democratic Congress (NDC) parliamentary primaries in the Tamale Central constituency with a landslide victory.
The elections, supervised by the party’s Elections and IT Directorate in the Northern Region, saw Prof. Seidu poll 840 votes out of the total valid ballots cast.
His closest contender, Lawyer Hanan Gundadow Abdul-Rahaman, secured 536 votes.
The other aspirants could not make significant gains, with Dr. Seidu Fiter obtaining 44 votes, Aliu Abdul-Hamid 23 votes, and the rest recording fewer than 10 votes each.
In all, 1,500 ballots were cast, with 6 ballots rejected and 7 spoilt ballots recorded.
The results were signed and declared by Dr. Arnold Mashud Abukari, NDC Northern Regional Director of Elections and IT.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) held parliamentary primaries in Tamale Central to choose a candidate for the upcoming by-election following the death of the sitting Member of Parliament, Dr. Ibrahim Murtala Mohammed. Dr. Mohammed, who also served as Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, tragically died in a military helicopter crash in the Adansi Akrofuom District on August 6, 2025, alongside seven others.
His passing left the Tamale Central seat vacant, as required by Ghana’s 1992 Constitution.
The Electoral Commission has scheduled the by-election for September 30, 2025. While the NDC moved quickly to open nominations and vet aspirants, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) announced it would not contest the seat, citing the need to respect the somber circumstances and promote national unity.
By: Jacob Aggrey
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Ghana to locally refine its gold starting October 2025 – Sammy Gyamfi
The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Gold Board, Sammy Gyamfi, has announced that plans are far advanced for the establishment of a state-owned gold refinery in the country.
Speaking at the 2025 Minerals and Mining Convention, Mr Gyamfi said the refinery will process locally mined gold into bullion instead of exporting it in its raw state.
According to him, it is unacceptable that Ghana, despite being a leading gold producer in Africa, continues to export raw gold known as dore.
He explained that the Gold Board, working with the Bank of Ghana and local refineries, will from October 2025 begin refining gold locally.
He also disclosed that an ultramodern assay laboratory will be built to ensure international standards in testing gold quality.
Mr Gyamfi noted that the refinery will be wholly state-owned and will help Ghana move away from raw mineral exports to value addition.
This, he said, will boost foreign exchange earnings, create jobs, and position Ghana as a hub for gold refining and jewellery production in Africa.
The CEO stressed that the project forms part of government’s strategy to ensure the country benefits fully from its natural resources and to transform the mining sector into a driver of economic growth.
By: Jacob Aggrey
