GREL inaugurates weighbridge at Abrem Agona

A farmer testing the weighbridge

 Rubber farmers around Abrem Agona in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo- Abrem (KEEA) Municipality of the Central Region have expressed their happiness at the inauguration of a new weighbridge.

Madam Frimpongmaa Antwi one of the rubber farmers said at least the money they used on hiring trucks to con­vey the rubber to Apiminim in the Ahanta West Municipal­ity, a distance of about 100 kilometres would be used on other viable ventures.

She said sometimes farmers would harvest their rubber but due to transport chal­lenges the rubber could be at the community for over a week before being trans­ported to the weighbridge at Apiminim.

Another farmer, Mr. Kojo Nsiah said on several occa­sions he harvested the latex but due to financial challeng­es to transport the latex to the weighbridge at Apiminim, he had to keep the rubber until he got money to trans­port it.

He said with the inaugu­ration of the weighbridge at Abrem Agona it would ease the difficulties in conveying the raw rubber to Apiminim for weighing.

The Managing Director of the GREL, Mr. Lionel Barre commissioning it said the construction of the weigh­bridge would relieve the rubber farmers in and around Abrem Agona of the burden of transporting rubber to Apiminim to be weighed.

He said GREL had assisted over 8,000 farmers to plant 30,155 hectares of rubber plantations in the Western, Central and Eastern regions of Ghana.

He disclosed that all the weighbridges at Awudua, Subri, Allabokazo all in the Western Region among oth­ers, have been calibrated and certified and constantly regu­lated by the Ghana Standards Authority so farmers enjoy the same quality of scale and services in line with the ISO Certification and Standards.

Mr. Barre said the construc­tion of these weighbridges would significantly improve the economic fortunes of the communities and the munic­ipality.

The chairman at the oc­casion, the Chief of Abrem Agona, Nana Essuakor Terpor V said rubber farming was yielding good results and bringing development to the communities.

He urged those who had land not used for any purpose to release it to people who were interested to go into rubber production.

He appealed to the man­agement of GREL to assist the community provide furniture to the newly constructed Police Station to allow the offices to be decent.

 From Peter Gbambi­la-Abrem Agona