Entrepreneur Exposes Agric Minister Destroying 500,000 metric Tonnes fertilizer factory Plans

A Ghanaian entrepreneur who won a grant from the United States government to construct a 500,000-tonne fertilizer factory to improve agriculture in Ghana has revealed how Agric Minister, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, destroyed the plan.

This revelation is coming at a time when the Akufo Addo government is inferring that young Ghanaians are too lazy to engage in entrepreneurship instead of public sector jobs. 

In a lament on Accra-based TV XYZ, the stranded young entrepreneur, Bernard Oduro Takyi, explains how every other signature required for the sealing of an off-taker agreement with the government was offered the project, apart from that of Dr. Afriyie Akoto himself.

And because he is the Agric Minister, his refusal to sign the agreement killed the agreement.

“The Agric Minister has really shortchanged the country,” Mr. Oduro Takyi said in Twi.

This revelation comes in the wake of rising food prices because farmers are unable to access fertilisers for their crops because of scarcity-related hoarding. 

According to him, in 2016, he was invited to the US White House for a program at the Mandela Washington fellowship.

“Obama himself signed a certificate for me… there were one thousand (1000) people from Africa out of which the top 50 were awarded. Out of the top 50 I emerged as the top fellow in terms of grant.”

He continues that the White House gave him an award and a certificate and in addition to the certificate, that opened him up to investors willing to set up the factory in Ghana.

 “Luckily enough, when I was receiving this award at the White House, the CEO of the biggest fertilizer manufacturing company in Africa was there. He informed me that they also had plans to build the biggest fertilizer company in Ghana. So they gave me an appointment letter dated March 2017,” Takyi recounted.

“Now in Ghana, Bono East, Ahafo and Bono regions constitute the food basket of Ghana but since 18657, we have not had even a single fertilizer factory there. So when I returned to Ghana, I quickly organized for us to set up a company, Pep Services Limited, the vision was that in the future we would set up the fertilizer factory, and so we went through the 1d1f, this is their letter; we were selected,” Mr. Bernard Oduro Takyi said.

He said after that the Chiefs of Domase gave them a 17 acre land for the project for free.

 “…So I invited a company from Mauritius to come down to do the feasibility studies. I paid for their plane ticket and hotel accommodation. They stayed in Ghana for three months. We did the feasibility study report. So we decided to set up the fertilizer company at Sunyani West, Odumase, in the Bono Regio,” he said.

“The capacity of the factory was to be almost 500,000 metric tonnes for a year. So we decided that since 1d1f had selected us we will enter into an off-taker agreement in which government would guarantee the purchase of 25,000 metric tonnes for COCOBOD.”

According to him, the lawyer for the Ministry of Food and Agriculture duly signed an off-taker agreement letter. But the Agric Minister told the new company that the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) government intends to start a fertilizer industry in Ghana and so they cannot sign the off-taker agreement for the company which was ready to hit the ground. 

Till date, the so-called fertilizer factory promised by the Akufo Addo government has remained a phantom.