Opinions of Saturday, 5 December 2015

Columnist: Mohammed, Murtala

NDC has failed Ghanaian farmers

The Progressive People’s Party wishes to join in celebrating Ghanaian Farmers on this day for their commitment and hard work in providing us with food. We sincerely appreciate you for continuing to remain our economic backbone all these years. We congratulate each and every one of you.
Any country that is not capable of feeding itself and export some of its produce cannot talk of economic development let alone talk about social development. Successive Governments have failed over the years to tackle issues regarding Farming head on. They have failed to look into the means of transporting foodstuffs from the growing areas to numerous markets across the country. Farmers in this country are bedeviled with inadequate road and rail infrastructures that will aid them sell their produce immediately to avoid rots and damages. This phenomenon leads to price hikes in foodstuff and also abuse of Farmers by some unscrupulous middle men.

The Government’s own assertion that Agricultural growth has fallen from 4.6% in 2014 to a far lower rate of 0.04% in 2015 is a clear indication of the failure by NDC in addressing the needs of the Farmer. The NDC Government has proven in their 7years of administration to be unfit to address the issue of the Farmer and Agriculture as a whole.

The PPP believes the modernization and transformation of our agriculture to augment productivity and assure food security and self-sufficiency is very important in the stabilization of our Economy. We are confident that, when Ghanaian votes the PPP in 2016, we will implement policies that will inure to the benefit of the Farmer and also boost Agricultural growth.
The PPP stands by its unshakeable commitment to use government's purchasing power to support agriculture and local industry as a whole.
Despite the hopelessness in the Agricultural sector, we still congratulate you Farmers of Ghana for your resilience and persistence in feeding the rest of us. AYEEKO!

Murtala Mohammed
National Secretary