Lying Agric Minister Must Resign …Chamber of Agribusiness boss

Chief Executive of the Chamber of Agric Business, Anthony Morrison, has called for the resignation of the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto.

In an interview with Accra-based Joy FM, Mr. Morison accused the Minister of supervising a collapsing agricultural sector and lying about the true state of agriculture in the country.

“The minister has been very poor in responding to the critical needs of the industry. More than 300 poultry farms have collapsed yet the poultry industry is the largest employer of the agricultural sector”, Mr. Morrison said.

He added that collaboration between key stakeholders in the agricultural sector and policymakers have been poor.

“There has not been any engagement on the part of the government with the private sector to find long-term solutions to some of these issues. In fact, the government owes suppliers of fertilizers, suppliers of seeds, food caterers and the National Food Buffer Stock Company. Ideally, we should have the agric minister stepping down because the data doesn’t support all the things he said he has been doing all these years,” he said.

Amidst skyrocketing food inflation, Afriyie Akoto has been claiming that the government’s “Planting for Food and Jobs” program has rather ensured food security and that food is readily available.

At a point, Afriyie Akoto said he knew food prices are low because of what his wife told him. This is in spite of the fact that the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has been reporting increasing food inflation.

According to Mr. Morison, with his deception, if the Agric Minister is left at post, Ghana will soon become even more import-dependent.

“Projections are that we’re going to import close to one million metric tonnes of rice and over 300,000 metric tonnes of maize. We heard the President say we don’t import tomatoes but as we speak, we import over $150 million worth of tomatoes from Burkina Faso,” he said.