Chief Executive Officer of the Chamber of Agribusiness, Anthony Morrison, has called for the resignation of the minister for agriculture, Owusu Afriyie Akoto.

He revealed that the minister’s plans to cart abundant food items in the Western North region to the urban areas to augment the supply in the city proves that he is bereft of ideas to salvage the soaring food prices in the country.

Mr Morrison stated that the agric ministry along with the minister are “sidestepping their mandate”, as their mandate is to design agriculture sector policies and oversee its implementation.

“Simply, the minister is bereft of ideas and to start with, he must just resign. I have been saying this for the past two years that the minister lacks what it takes to run that ministry. I’m sad that we have the Ghana Association of Agriculture Economy sitting down… This is an issue of elasticity, demand and supply.”
Anthony Morrison

According to him, the move by the minister will disrupt the food supply chain works in Ghana. He explained that some farmers in the rural areas are sponsored by aggregators, queen mothers and transporters who stockpile produce and transport to the city to make profit.

“What the minister is trying to do is to create chaos [and] violence in our market centres. When these produce comes to Accra, which markets are they going to sell them? Is the minister going to give these foods to the market queens to sell when they have already made arrangement for their own foodstuffs? Is the minister telling me that they are going to mitigate crisis by buying this and selling and partaking in the industry where it is meant for the private sector?”
Anthony Morrison

Mr Morrison emphasized that the agric ministry is not an implementing body and indicated that the implementing body is the department of agriculture at the local government sector. He further noted that MoFA directors at the regional level can also coordinate activities with regards to project implementation.

“So, that tells you that the minister actually does not understand what it takes to effectively run agriculture in Ghana; if you cannot easily understand your mandate, that is the starting point. Where we’ve gotten to, is the fact that the minister actually is either refusing to accept his failures [and] he’s refusing to undertake a very good analytical situation of why food prices are going up.”
Anthony Morrison

GAWU bemoans Agric minister’s plans to cart food

On his part, the General Secretary of the General Agricultural Workers’ Union (GAWU), Edward Kareweh, revealed that the announcement made by Mr Afriyie Akoto is a “wrong move”. He questioned whether the minister understands why food from the rural areas to Accra tends to be expensive.

“Long ago, the minister made some statement that middlemen and value chain are profiteering. I think he is pursuing that agenda by saying that, because they are profiteering, I want to go there myself and I cut them off. But that is not true.”
Edward Kareweh

Mr Kareweh stated that the surge in fuel prices has gravely impacted food and the solution lies in ensuring that government puts systems in place that will facilitate the movement of foodstuffs from rural areas to urban centres. He identified one of the major obstacles to high food prices as fuel and cost of transportation.

“We will not support any action of the minister which does not come with a budget for all of us to look at. We have gotten to this point because we know our country is in dire crisis and we are to rally behind the President to see how we can mitigate this crisis. So, we also expect the President and government officials to be transparent.”
Edward Kareweh

The GAWU General Secretary cautioned the agric minister not to operate the ministry as a middleman. He explained that if push comes to shove, the Buffer Stock Company can be delegated to handle the carting of food to urban areas.

“So, the exercise to start with, is not a well-thought through but the minister still has the penchant to go on with it. Even in the face of opposition, he will not accept any idea coming from anybody and this is going to deepen our problems. This is not the function of the ministry of Agriculture.”
Edward Kareweh