COTTON FARMERS DENY RECEIVING ¢20bn GOV'T SUPPORT

IT WOULD be recalled that the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr. Ernest Akobuor Debrah, in the Daily Graphic edition of Monday June 12, 2006 stated that his Ministry had given ¢20 billion as government support to cotton farmers in the three Northern regions to expand their businesses.

After some weeks, the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG), who apparently received this news with some shock, embarked on their usual investigations or exercise of ensuring that all promises made about farmers in Ghana by governments and donors are fulfilled, and later came out with a different report, which sought to refute the Minister’s pronouncement.

The PFAG therefore expressed their displeasure at a press conference in Tamale, which obligated the MoFA Minister, Mr. Debrah, to counter their report with another press conference in Accra.

He insisted at the press conference on his claim of providing the ¢20 billion support to the farmers, thereby setting the stage for public speculations and debates.

However, The Chronicle’s follow up investigations into the matter in over 15 key cotton growing communities in five districts in the Northern Region have uncovered some ‘ill responses and reactions’ from both the farmers and the said certified organisations.

Though Mr. Ernest Debrah insisted he had providing the farmers with the ¢20 billion through Nulux Plantation Company Ltd, the Ghana Cotton Company Ltd (GCCL) and the Plantation Development Limited (PDL) for the supply of fertilizers, cotton seeds and ploughing of lands this season, The Chronicle can authoritatively say that the Minister had thrown dust into the eyes of Ghanaians to win favour at the ignorance of the poor cotton farmers.

Some of the cotton farmers in an interview with this paper insisted they had not taken delivery of such amount or support from any of the organisations or directly from the government.

Meanwhile, Mr. Debrah had categorically stressed that his Ministry had given out ¢4.6 billion as part of the ¢20 billion to the GCCL for ploughing of 10,000 hectares of land and supplying of cotton seeds and fertilizers to farmers in their various operational areas in the three northern regions, which work the Minister said had been completed.

However, officials of the GCCL Northern Regional office in an interview with The Chronicle said although they were purely responsible for all operational works of the GCCL at the regional level, they had not been engaged in or mandated to undertake such operations.

The Assistant Northern Regional Manager of GCCL, Mr. Mumuni Alhassan, who was somehow apprehensive to supply this reporter with the necessary information, eventually disclosed that GCCL could not supply adequate seeds and fertilizers to their farmers.

On the ¢20 billion project and the GCCL’s involvement, Mr. Mumuni said that he as Assistant Manager was not officially aware and could therefore not produce any official document on the ¢4.6 billion the Minister said had been given to his company.

“I’m supposed to be officially aware but my boss has not informed me and I can’t tell whether or not he has received any official letter or money for the supply,” he told the paper. “We have started supplying cotton seeds to some farmers, but in fact we have just covered only about 10% of our operational areas,” the GCCL man said.

Meanwhile, the paper’s investigations have revealed that this year’s cotton season has already ended, thus any support from MoFA regarding cotton seeds or fertilizer would be meaningless to the farmers.

The Managing Director of a company that was also supposed to benefit from government’s support on behalf of the farmers, begged anonymity when he told The Chronicle that although his management had recently received a letter from MoFA confirming their participation in the project, the company was yet to receive their share of the ¢20 billion for the intended operations, but he could not make the project document available to this paper even after he promised to.

When The Chronicle contacted the Northern Regional, the Yendi District and the East Mamprusi District offices of MoFA, they said in separate interviews that they had only heard the news about the ¢20 billion support for the cotton farmers on TV and radio, but had got no official idea as to how authentic the reports were.

Mr. Sylvester A. Adongo, Northern Regional Director of MoFA, was unhappy about the vast gap between the Ministry and the local offices and more particularly how the alleged ¢20 billion had been allegedly given out to some companies without the involvement of the Regional and District MoFA offices to enable them monitor the projects to ensure its good implementation.

Also in an interview with The Chronicle, a member of the Standing Committee on the development of the cotton industry and acting vice president of the Cotton Companies Association of Ghana, Alhaji Seidu Karim, doubted the Minister’s claim.

“It is never true! Because if there was any ¢20 billion, it would be made known to the Standing Committee, but we are not aware,” he said.

Alhaji Karim also derided the Minister for giving the said ¢20 billion support to farmers at the time they did not need it.

Some of the cotton growing districts the paper visited in its investigations included the Yendi District, Tamale Metropolis, Saboba/Cheriponi District and East Mamprusi District.

The President of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana, Mohammed Adam Nasiru, in an interview told the paper that his outfit would continue to make noise until the ¢20 billion was accordingly given to the farmers in the three northern Regions for the intended purposes.

Efforts to contact the Minister of Food and Agriculture proved futile.