General News of Friday, 7 March 2014

Source: tv3network.com

Domestication is the way to go – GCPP Leader

Leader of the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP), Dr Henry Herbert Lartey, has lauded the declaration of President John Dramani Mahama that every day should be considered a ‘Made in Ghana’ Day.

President Mahama lent credence to the daily use of locally manufactured products in his 57th Independence Day Anniversary address.

“If we are to be truly independent, we cannot allow our destiny to be determined by corporations, industries, or individuals who exist beyond our national borders. And that is precisely what we are doing when the majority of what we consume comes from outside. It is precisely what we are doing when all that we export are raw materials extracted from the earth,” President Mahama stated at the Black Star Square on Thursday, March 6.

Speaking on TV3 on the issue, Dr Lartey, whose father Dan Lartey passionately advocated the patronage of Ghanaian products, said he laments it has taken 14 years for his father’s ideology to be imbibed by the state.

“Ghanaians produce every day,” Dr Lartey noted, adding it behoves on the government to provide the necessary resources so "the patriotic" ones can produce in large quantities.

“There are farmers who produce every day,” he noted.

He advised Ghanaians living in urban and peri-urban areas to patronize local products as, according to him, those in the rural areas are already consuming Ghanaian products, “like the Ghanaian rice, and they produce the Ghanaian rice”.

“There is no other way other than domestication,” Dr Lartey stated.