The Deputy Minister for Food and Agriculture in charge of crops, Yaw Frimpong Addo, has admitted that the year 2022 was one of the most difficult years that Ghana has faced.

According to him, the hardship in the country, which was seen particularly from October 2022 to December 2022, was mostly because of the continuous depreciation of the country’s currency, the Ghana Cedis.

The deputy minister, who made this admission in an interview on GhanaWeb’s The Lowdown programme, which aired on Monday, July 10, 2023, described the happening within the stated period as ‘hellish’.

“… we all know what happened to Ghana between October and November 2022, it was hellish in this country.

“Because on a daily basis, the cedi was going crazy, and it affected everything, every aspect of life in this country was affected. And food prices were hugely affected because of transportation and all that,” he said.

The deputy minister made these remarks while answering a question on why the government’s Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) markets initiatives had ceased.

He refuted assertions that the government could not continue with the Planting for Food and Jobs Market initiative because it was not feasible.

Frimpong Addo, who is also a Member of Parliament for Adubia, explained that the initiative was just a temporally measure that was aimed at curbing the rising price of food items that was seen last year.

He added that the programme was mainly aimed at transporting food from rural areas where food was cheap to urban centres.

“The cost of transportation we needed to do something about it. We saw a lot of this food staff we went round the country… the price there were so cheap but in urban areas the prices were crazy.

“So, we decided to do something about it. Then we decided to quickly organise this one which we called the PFJ markets… it was for a short period and a purpose,” he told the host of Lowdown, Daniel Oduro.

Watch Frimpong Addo’s remarks in the last episode of The Lowdown below:





BAI/OGB