Tsiame (V/R), Dec. 4, GNA - The taste for foreign products and goods was putting brakes on the country's progress, Mr Dan Abodakpi, the Member of Parliament for Keta, has said. He said it was necessary for people to be educated to understand the basics of international economics to enable them stop such "unholy alliance with other peoples products to enable the country attain a reasonable level of self-reliance."

Mr Abodakpi was addressing the Keta District Farmers' day celebration at Tsiame last Friday.

"We deny our farmers the money needed to continue their work and get them bankrupt because we give such monies to foreign farmers and countries as we patronize their goods", he said. Mr Abodakpi said the country's annual trade deficit was partly due to the penchant for foreign goods leading to huge imports of rice, a product that is in abundance in fields across the country. He appealed to the government to work speedily to remove bottlenecks in the agricultural sector.

Fifty year-old Seth Nditsi from Tsiame, was adjudged the best farmer in the district and was given a television set, four cutlasses, two pairs of Wellington boots, a clock, a radio set, a spraying machine, two bags of fertilizer, one piece of wax print and a certificate.