Many Ghanaians across the country have reported not feeling the excitement that mostly characterizes Christmas though there are few days to the festivities.
Most attribute this to the economic battles the country is confronted with and the current journey back to stability.
Sulemana Braimah, Executive Director for the Media Foundation for West Africa, speaking during a news review shared same sentiments with these Ghanaians.
Mr. Braimah indicated that apart from the seasonal breaks which to him comes as a constant reminder, he sees nothing peculiar about the week indicating it is a seasonal period.
“I feel quite the same as those expressing the sentiments that the feeling appears not to be there. I guess what gives me the reminder is the fact that we go on break on Thursday this week and that perhaps is the constant reminder to me that we are getting to Christmas.
“The buildup of traffic is not as we know it to be during the Christmas period this year. I haven’t heard friends and colleagues, friends and family members in the market act differently or say things differently in terms of patronage and all of that. So it appears we are losing that ‘feel’ that is often associated with Christmas but maybe this is the week. We wait to see how things go.”
Mr. Braimah
The Poultry Industry Is Suffering
Ghana is one of the major importers of chicken in Africa but government’s efforts to reduce reliance on imports are being stifled as the local poultry industry continues to suffer from the recent economic difficulties.
As a result, Mr. Braimah stated that some of those into the poultry business have to fold up with their major concern and setback being, the cost of feed.
The Executive Director for the Media Foundation for West Africa explained that the cost of feed, according to the poultry farmers, was wiping away their profit margins from the eggs produced thus, their decision to fold up.
“I have 2 friends who started poultry farming, one about 2 years ago, the other person about 4 years ago, and surprisingly, early this year, … they both had to fold up and their major concern was the cost of feed, in other words, the cost of maintaining the animals, the cost of keeping the animals, wasn’t matching the profit they were generating mainly from the eggs.
“I don’t know at what point in time we started importing into the country such large quantities of poultry. It comes down to who are the people involved. If it is people in government, people in powerful positions, and the government has difficulty in implementing policies that will eventually affect those people economically, then, we will see what we have been seeing.”
Executive Director
Though having little hopes on government promises to the public, the director hopes the President can do something with regards to implementing policies that will resuscitate the poultry industry economically when he spoke about import substitution earlier.
Chicken is one of the staples of Christmas but with prices shooting up each day in this year following the challenges faced by the industry, customers are left with no other option than to reduce their patronage.
Government therefore, has to intervene with immediate measures to remedy this challenge in order to make Christmas exciting amidst the economic crunch.
