Planting for Food and Jobs fertiliser worth $12 million missing

A substantial amount of subsidised fertilizer meant for government’s Planting for Food and Jobs programme has gone missing.

Accra-based Joy FM reports that the missing fertiliser is reportedly about 50,000 metric tonnes and worth $12 million.

A report by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Agriculture, (Food and Cocoa Affairs) on the financial estimates for 2019 said they may have been smuggled to Burkina Faso and Togo.

Agric Minister, Dr. Afriyie Akoto Pulse Ghana

According to the report, the Ministry for Food and Agriculture has also been allocated insufficient funds in the 2019 budget for the purchase of fertiliser.

“Out of a total budget of GHȼ140, 930, 250.00 earmarked for the purchase of fertilizer for the year 2019, only GHȼ47, 726,216.80 has been provided for in the budget,” sections of the report reads.

The Committee was also informed that other funding sources would be sought by the Ministry to support this programme.

Meanwhile, the Ministry was admonished “to ensure that the needed funding is sought to augment the shortfall.”

The Committee also encouraged the Ministry to put in place measures “to curb the smuggling of fertilizer out of the country.”

Meanwhile, there is an ongoing construction of 80 new warehouses to ensure adequate storage of crops in 2019, the Ministry said.

This is meant to cater for the issue of inadequate storage space was also captured in the report by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Agriculture.