Govt not serious with agric development — Dr Akoto

Page 15, Dece 22, 2009
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah

THE Member of Parliament (MP) for Kwadaso, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, has described the government‘s commitment to develop the agricultural sector as not being backed by any serious efforts.
According to him, the government had not demonstrated any commitment to embark on new projects, arguing that an examination of the estimates and policies presented by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture clearly showed continuity and not change.
“Projects presented in the estimates were all initiated during the period of the NPP administration. There are no bold initiatives in the budget estimate,” the MP stated in a statement in a contribution on the floor of the House.
He said Ghanaian farmers were going to be terribly disappointed if they were expecting any relief in 2010.
Dr Akoto noted that although a total of GH¢923 million was requested by the ministry for agricultural development in 2010, the ministry was allocated only GH¢256.3 million, representing 28 per cent of the requested amount.
“That is how committed this government is to agriculture,” he stated, adding that “of the GH¢256.3 million, government contributed only one-third (GH¢92.1 million), with the rest coming from external donors”.
He said it was even more significant if one compared the allocation of GH¢256.3 million to the ministry for the year 2010 to last year’s allocation of GH¢200.6 million.
Dr Akoto said if account was taken of the annual average rate of inflation of some 20 per cent in 2009, then there was hardly any change in the budget allocation for the ministry in 2010.
The MP noted that rice, which had been touted as a food item for sustainable development, had not been given adequate attention by the government.
“Indeed, the Minister of Agriculture has been quoted as saying that production of rice will be doubled in two years from the current 200,000 metric tonnes per annum. I have gone through the budgetary estimates for all the rice projects and I challenge the minister to show us where the resources are coming from to double output in two year,” Dr Akoto stated.
He stated that rather the government had imposed a draconian tax on rice imports which was going to increase the retail price for rice consumers.
“This is penalising consumers, especially the teeming numbers of workers and their families in the urban areas.
“This unpopular tax will take money out of the pockets of the suffering poor urban workers instead of putting money into their pockets as promised under the Better Ghana slogan of the NDC government,” he stated.
The MP stated that the tax would not increase government revenue but rather intensify smuggling of rice from Cote d’Ivoire into the country.
Touching on cocoa, the MP stated that there were reports of intensified smuggling of cocoa across the country’s borders into Cote d’Ivoire and Togo.
He said reports from some MPs and from elsewhere “indicate that articulator-loads of cocoa are crossing the border everyday as a result of high prices of cocoa in neighbouring countries”.
He attributed that to a defect in the government’s policy for the fixing of the price paid to farmers.
He said farmers in those countries were receiving more than GH¢3000 per metric tonnes compared to local farmers who were being given GH¢2280 per metric tonnes.