An agriculturist and managing director of Sydals Limited William Awuku Ahiadormey has launched a scathing attack on government, blaming it for what he terms the woes of the local poultry industry.

Mr. Ahiadormey says a government decision to withdraw import tariffs on poultry products and its accompanying influx of cheap imported chicken into the country is responsible for the virtual collapse of the local poultry industry.

But Finance minister Kwadwo Baah- Wiredu disagrees. He told the dailyEXPRESS that if the industry had collapsed, local farmers like Mr. Kwabena Darko will not be exporting birds to Cameroon and other countries.

Outlining the difficulties and lack of institutional support for poultry farmers at a day’s seminar on maximizing poultry production in Accra, Mr. Ahiadormey lamented that the lack of import tariffs on poultry products has impacted negatively on the local industry.

With statistics from the Veterinary Services Department to back his claims, the agricultural expert said even before 2001 when there were calls for government to reduce poultry imports by imposing a strict tariff regime, local production at the time was higher than imports.

“Before 2001, there was always a lot of talk about poultry imports, reduce imports, use tariffs etc. Even the government was uncomfortable. But around those days, local production was clearly higher than imports,” he said.

Implying a deliberate deception of local poultry farmers by the Kufour administration Mr. Ahiadormey said, “in the 2001 budget, it was said that there was a tariff but on the quiet by June, the tariff was removed. The message went first to traders, those who were importing chicken. The message did not go to the farmers. So farmers in their game plan were thinking that things were normal. But the traders got the information and they went out to bring more chicken. So you can see that by the time we got into 2002, imports went above local production.”

According to him, by 2005, “64% of chicken eaten in Ghana was imported; only 36% was produced locally and this is the worse you could do to the industry.

Because you took off the tariffs, we did not even inform the farmers so they did not have a way of counteracting the effect. So right now as we speak, last year 22,709 metric tons of chicken was produced locally, while 40,591 was imported. We can all look at it and interpret it differently. But the effect was that we are actually pulling down local production.”

He encouraged the poultry industry players not to sit and fold their alms in despair, but wake up and form an effective and powerful lobby group to lobby government and influence policies in their favour.

“We to together must lobby government to improve policies. It’s not a function to be done by one person or just one association. We need to fight it together. All industries lobby governments for policies that would favour them. But in our industry, we don’t really want to do that. If we have to attend funerals of our MPs or our MP’s relatives; if we have to fund their political campaigns so that policy could be done in our favour, we have to do it. If we don’t, others will do it and we will be there.”

Managing Director of Maridav Ghana Limited Ernest Owusu-Afari, one of the organizers of the seminar told the dailyEXPRESS that the aim of the seminar was to remind participants about simple but effective practices that can lead to increased production. He added that although the recent avian influenza scare has negatively affected the industry, it has shown resilience and is now recovering gradually from the impact.

Contacted for his reaction, the Finance Minister says he cannot confirm or deny whether government is responsible for killing the local poultry industry. According to him, “if it is true that government has killed the industry then how come it is reported in the September 7 edition of the Daily Graphic that Kwabena Darko, a poultry farmer is exporting poultry into Cameroun? Is that not a sign of growth of the industry?”

He also added that he would need some time to verify whether it is true that government secretly withdrew import tariffs and communicated it to poultry traders at the expense of the farmers which resulted in the virtual collapse of the local industry as being alleged.