Dr Yaw Addo Frimpong, the Deputy Agriculture Minister has revealed that his ministry is strategizing to come up with plans to provide fertiliser to farmers directly.

According to him, the efforts will ensure that middlemen and distributors are relieved of their position in getting these fertilisers to farmers.

His comments come after an acute shortage of subsidised fertiliser were recorded in some parts of northern Ghana.

Dr Frimpong explained that this measure, among others, will help the ministry to solve the issue of fertiliser smuggling in the northern parts of the country.

“I am sure with the measures we are putting in place, next year we will not face these challenges. We now have identified the causes and everything. We are mapping up better strategies to get fertilisers to farmers directly that will cut off these distributors, the way fertilisers get missing and re-bagged and all that”.
Dr Yaw Addo Frimpong

Additionally, the Deputy Agric minister expressed the need to partner with other agencies in addressing the challenge.

Dr Frimpong noted that partnering with institutions such as the National Security, Immigration Service and the Ghana Police Service will help find permanent solutions to the challenge.

Halting smuggling of fertilisers

Per farmers sentiments in the regions, they explained that they do not have access to the fertilisers. Following this, the prices of some of the products in the open market are also excessively expensive to purchase.

Prior to this, Dr Frimpong had disclosed that the pervading issues with fertiliser supply is as a result of shortages.

According to him, due to the shortages, market prices of fertilisers have gone up, making it difficult for farmers to purchase.

However, Dr Frimpong insisted that the issue of shortage had been dealt with some weeks ago. To this end, he revealed that investigations need to be undertaken in the region to determine where the fertilisers go when distributed in the regions.

“If people are smuggling this product across the borders, the Ministry of Agric is limited in its operations. Ours is to get the product to the distributors, they will give it to the farmers and somehow if these things find their way out of the country, it is a security issue”.
Dr Yaw Addo Frimpong

Payment of fertiliser suppliers

Currently, the government, via the Ministry of Finance, has announced a release of over GH¢260 million for the payment of arrears owed to fertiliser companies from May to July 2021.

Commenting on this, the Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr Afriyie-Akoto, explained that the funds released comprised an amount of GH¢176,631,445.

He explained that the payment represented 44 percent of the total debt of GH¢587,876,784 owed all the fertilizer companies that supplied fertilizers to all the farmers under the Planting for Food and Jobs program

That notwithstanding, he revealed that the actual payment made to the companies so far was GH¢73.8 million.

Touching on whether the monies have been paid, Dr Frimpong detailed that “it is the Ministry of Finance that will be the best to answer this question, I know about the money but as for its disbursement, I cannot tell. I need to find out from the ministry”.