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Free fertilisers were distributed to cronies under NDC – NPP fires back at minority

At a press conference Friday, the Vice Chair of the Food and Agriculture Committee, Kwame Asafu Adjei, said the free distribution of fertilizers under the National Democratic Congress administration was fraught with cronyism and hoard.

At a press conference Friday, the Vice Chair of the Food and Agriculture Committee, Kwame Asafu Adjei, said the free distribution of fertilizers under the National Democratic Congress administration was fraught with cronyism and hoarding.

He explained that: “Until 2014, fertilisers were being subsidised and farmers had easy access to the input. However, from the beginning of 2014/2015 crop season, the authoritarian Chief Executive of Cocobod, Dr Opuni, decided to give out fertilisers free of charge to farmers for application on their farms.“Quantities purchased were insufficient to meet the demands of all farmers due to budgetary constraints.“Farmers complained of inadequate supply as well as diversion of the inputs. On paper, huge quantities of fertiliser were purchased, but most cocoa farms were not fertilised and this is one of the major reasons why cocoa production never exceeded the 700,000 metric tonne range.”

According to him, based on this considerations, the Akufo-Addo administration decided to introduce the fertiliser subsidy programme” in a bid to ensure that “the budgeted amount of fertiliser is equitably distributed to all farmers”.

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He stressed that price of fertilizers have been slashed by almost GHC70 from GHC150, saying that any well-meaning cocoa farmer should be able to afford one and apply on his farm.

The Minority MPs last Wednesday accused the Akufo-Addo replaced a promising Cocoa fertilization programme the Mahama government introduced and is thus ripping off cocoa farmers.

“Surprisingly, the NPP government on assumption of office has replaced the free fertilization programme with a programme under which farmers pay (GHc80) for a bag of fertilizer. This is unacceptable, we cannot sit aloof for the government to cheat our cocoa farmers.”

“Under the free fertilization programme, the cocoa farmer was entitled to 7.5 bags of granular fertilizer per every hectare of cocoa farm. So a farmer who has 100 hectares of cocoa farm was given 750 bags of fertilizer free of charge. Today under President Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government, the same farmer is to pay (GHc60,000) for the same 750 bags of fertilizer. This has exposed the Ghanaian cocoa farmer to intolerable levels of penury. We are therefore urging the NPP government to be sensitive to the plight of the Ghanaian cocoa farmer by halting the sale of the fertilizer and revert to the NDC’s free fertilization programme for the 2016/2017 cocoa season,” Eric Opoku added.

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