Agric Minister, Dr. Afriyie Akoto
A communication team member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Patrick Kwame Attuah, has strongly taken on the Agriculture Minister, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto for not being able to effectively implement the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) initiative, thereby, plunging the nation into food crises.
Patrick Kwame Attuah believes the recent hikes in food prices is a result of the scarcity of foodstuffs in the country.
Speaking on Kumasi-based Abusua FM, he attributed the situation to the Agric Minister’s failure to properly support farmers with agricultural inputs to enhance productivity.
Mr. Kwame Attuah wondered why the minister continues to peddle falsehood on public platforms that there’s an abundance of food in the country.
He said, “Can you imagine that the Minister sat on a plane and saw food crops around the Tamale area when he was attending Bawumia mother’s funeral and returned to Accra and lied that there’s an abundance of food in the country, we just have to get serious as a country.”
“The Agric Minister has a market that he attends alone, where he goes to buy plantain GHS4.00 and 5.00 but myself sitting here and Ghanaians know that food is very expensive currently especially maize, plantain and others,” he added.
Mr. Attuah said he’s still struggling to uncover the impact of the Planting for food and jobs initiative on the Ghanian society after five (5) years of implementation of the program considering the high cost of food prices at various markets across the country.
He blamed the minister for not making the policy attractive to the youth, saying many of the young people wandering around are not interested in agriculture because they don’t see any impact.
However, a communication member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Rafael Osei Owusu discounted the claims and explained that agriculture under the NPP government is one of the best performing sectors.
He clarified that the planting for food and jobs initiative has over the last five years employed several thousands of people across the country and there are still plans to engage more.
Mr. Owusu said apart from that other significant steps are also being put in place to roll out some other important policies to help tackle the growing unemployment situation in the country.