President John Dramani Mahama has announced that he is intending to send some members of Ghana’s 48th Engineers Army Regiments to assist in reconstruction of hurricane hit Jamaica.
Ghana 48 Engineer Regiment is composed of highly trained personnel who are experts in their field, undertaking specialised military and civil engineering tasks.
The President said the experts, which would include engineers, masons, carpenters, and others would go and help to make makeshift shelters for the Jamaican people.
President Mahama made the announcement in his keynote address at the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park in Accra during the 80th Anniversary Celebration of Manchester Declaration, which is referred to as the Fifth Pan-African Congress.
The Fifth Pan-African Congress was held at the Chorlton-on-Medlock Town Hall, Manchester, United Kingdom, between the 15 and 21 October 1945 under the chairmanship of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the then future leader of Ghana.
President Mahama used the opportunity to rally his fellow African leaders to extend support to hurricane hit Jamaica and Cuba in the spirit of Pan-Africanism.
He said, he received a phone call on Monday, November 17, from Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley of Barbados, who and other Caribbean leaders were in Jamaica to express solidarity with the People of Jamaica following Hurricane Melissa.
The President noted that for the first time, the Caribbean Leaders were seeing the true extent of the destruction that had been coursed by Hurricane Melissa.
He reiterated that one of the essences of Pan-Africanism was solidarity, saying, “But out of our Pan-African inspirators, Ghana, we decided that we put food and other things together and ship them to our comrades in Jamaica and Cuba.”
He explained that Ghana had already sent some assorted items; such as bags of rice, medication, plastic buckets and bowls, mattresses, blankets, and several other assorted materials to be shared between the people of Jamaica and Cuba.
He said Monday was the first time that they were learning exactly what it was that the People of Jamaica needed.
He said Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness, had indicated that their need was to give the people who had been displaced shelter so that they come out of the open rain and sunshine to have a place to lay their heads.
“And so, if you can appeal to our African comrades to come to our aid, the extent of distraction in Jamaica is beyond our capacity alone to repair,” President Mahama quoted Prime Minister Holness.
Ghana’s Foreign Ministry the President said had written to the African Union to inform all the member states that whatever they could lay hands on, such as blankets and tapolins, they could use them to create makeshift tents for people to lay their heads under.
President Mahama appealed to all including other African states to come to the aid of Jamaica and Cuba as a show of solidarity.
In attendance at the event was former President John Agyekum Kufuor.
GNA