Information and National Orientation Minister, Stephen Asamoah Boateng says the stock of medals procured to honour deserving awardees at National Awards ceremonies, is for a three year period.In all, 515 medals were procured from UK-based Cleave and Company International at a cost of about £740,000. About 244 of the lot were awarded at the 2008 National Awards ceremony, held at the Accra International Conference Centre last week.Of the 515 pieces, five were those for the Grand Order of the Stars and Eagle award President J.A. Kufuor instituted last week exclusively for Presidents of the Republic who complete their term of office, but Asamoah Boateng told Joy FM that the Grand Order of the Stars and Eagle is not only for Ghanaian presidents but also heads of state of other nations that Ghana may find deserving of the highest national award.When we go for medals for national awards, we do print them in bulk, sometimes over more than one year so that we can have the cost reduced. So it may well be that weve taken advantage of the reduction and in this particular instance I checked and we have ordered or three years of medals. So almost all the categories of medals I believe that will last for that year. In terms of the Grand Order of the Stars and Eagle, that is the highest honour and until this was created we had the Order of the Star. What we do is that we take more than one because we do have dignitaries who visit us or who in their work may have done something to help Ghana so we do honour them by giving them the medal so we print extra for such dignitaries when they are in the country so we can offer them those kind of medals thats why we did more than one.Asamoah Boateng said he saw nothing wrong with the £33,000 cost per each of the five Grand Order of the Stars and Eagle medals given the quality of work that went into it, chiding also that medals are not collected freely from the beaches and that their value as tokens of appreciation and honour should rather be considered.Asamoah Boateng said he could not readily tell how many of the medals were given out but was sure that the process to procure the medals went through the procurement requirements and that he would be surprised if it did not.Meanwhile the Ghana Federation of Jewellers says it is disappointed that the contract to produce the medals were sourced outside of the country when its craftsmen have all it takes to deliver any quality of job required.The Federations President told Joy FM that the situation has since the 1960s persisted and it appeared to him that it is not going to change any timeAuthor: Isaac Yeboah