The General Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU), has called on President Akufo-Addo to, with immediate effect, remove Dr. Afriyie Akoto as Minister for Food and Agriculture and bring in someone with fresh ideas.
According to GAWU, the ministry needs fresh ideas to tackle the current challenges in the agriculture sector.
Speaking in an interview on Friday, March 18, 2022, on Sunyani based radio station Nimdee FM, General Secretary for GAWU, Edward Kareweh noted that the Minister has been consistently feeding the President with figures which do not reflect the situation on grounds.
Mr Kareweh indicated that, last year January 5, 2021, when His Excellency the President gave his State of the Nation address, he indicated in that address that thanks to planting for food and jobs program Ghana then is a net exporter of food and that Ghana was exporting tomatoes and plantains knowing very well that three weeks earlier our importers of tomatoes from Burkina Faso were been attacked by armed robbers here and there and then they have to even demonstrate and ask for police escort.
“How can you go and feed the President with information which is not true when we are importing tomatoes from Burkina Faso,” he asked
He stated that, in that statement the president also came out and said maize production has been up by 110% over the 2019 production level.
“Meanwhile, a few months later in March last year there wasn’t any maize in the system. Poultry farmers were looking for maize and they weren’t getting it, kenkey sellers were looking for maize and they weren’t getting it and the price shot up,” Mr. Kareweh said.
For him, the Minister always praises the planting for food and jobs policy while the situation is different on the grounds and ‘when you criticize him they throw insults on you saying you are playing politics with the issue’, he said.
“Agriculture is declining. We import tomatoes from Burkina Faso while Ghana has better land and climate than Burkina Faso. Why should this happen?”
He continued, “What we are saying is that we are not going to rely on figures, the figures that he has been getting and putting it out in the public. We will take those figures and match it with what is happening at the grounds because the best place to measure whether or not prices has gone up is in the market. It doesn’t lie in anybody’s mouth to say that prices has come down or prices has gone up,” he said.
“I don’t know whether the Minister has a supervisor. He has been appointed by somebody. You see, all of us from time to time we run out of ideas and we need fresh ideas to come in. Is the office for one person? If he cannot give results, then he should give way for others who can give results to come in. Why is he still there?”
“He has done his best and his best cannot take us to where we want to get to,” he added.
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