The then agriculture minister, in a press complained how fertiliser importers had refused to bring in fertilisers because they had not been paid their previous imports. His reason was that, the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, had not released the money. He further continued by explaining how poultry farmers birds were dying from hunger due to shortage of maize, required for manufacturing their feeds. According to him, 1.5 million bags of maize were needed urgently, otherwise the poultry industry was going to collapse within weeks.
Weeks after his complaints, the Government finally issued a permit for the importation of 60,000 metric tonnes of maize, but the imported maize had not yet arrived as expected. It was also observed that the prices of maize on the international market were significantly higher than that on the local market.
The question is, WHY WOULD GHANA BE IMPORTING MAIZE/FERTILISER AFTER SEVERAL YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE?
Out of about 23 million plus hectares of land in Ghana, only about 13,000 hectares are suitable and used for agriculture accompanied with low soil fertility.
But why must our leaders continue importing for agriculture?
There are no shortages of research scientists. Our universities have professors and lecturers and have been turning out graduates into chemical, mechanical and agricultural engineering for ages.
There have been USAID funded programmes including Ghana Strategy Support Programme, The USAID/Ghana feed the future agricultural policy Support project (APSP), the USAID west Africa fertiliser programme (WAFP) and the African Fertiliser and Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP) amongst others.
All these aids, grants and support from these organisations are producing no evident progressive results in the country, instead things are becoming worse. It was concluded that there were no enough commitment from the individual governments of West Africa after the USAID helped ECOWAS, of which Ghana is a member, to set up the West Africa fertiliser programme with a budget of $18million.
Our situation in the agricultural sector and the whole country is similar to putting a cart before the horse.
It is so obvious that after several attempts by Afriyie Akoto, Ghana’s former Agric Minister, to disgracefully collapse the Planting for Food and Jobs Initiative, implemented by His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, he was trying so hard to impress him, by importing this maize. Just as Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, the Health Minister justified his quick action to procure vaccines for Ghana, there may also be an ulterior motive concerning this maize deal.
Just as several people opined that Ken Ofori-Atta and Kwaku Agyemang-Manu were the key actors involved in the Sputnik V Vaccine scandal, it is possible that he led in this importation deal as well.
The way corruption in this country is getting worse and highly predictable, it is possible that someone was likely to spearhead this agenda so that they would all benefit. The finance Minister was the only person who had a sole responsibility to approve all international and local transactions. Hence, he might have been the one to be the key beneficiary of this particular transaction, should any form of corruption emerge.
With the points justified above, I do not think Ghana should be importing a ‘common’ maize by any time of the day. If we were indeed beyond aid, why then were we be importing maize?
Maybe the Planting for Food and Jobs Initiative was just on paper, and yet to be practically integrated into the Ghanaian Agriculture value chain.
This mistake must never be made the newly appointed Minister for Agric under the Mahama-led Administration.
Source : m.dailyadvent.com
