By Joyce Bedeley:
It’s yet too early to make a certain pronouncement bordering on whether the new agric minister, Dr. Owusu Akoto Afriyie can deliver or not – this is according to the group, peasant farmers association of Ghana. Programmes Officer of the PFAG, Mr. Bismark Nortey who was responding to various controversies surrounding the appointment of the in-coming minister of agric made this assertion on Rite Agro news.
‘As human being, if you assign someone any work, you need to give the person sometime before you can decide whether he can work or not,’ Mr. Nortey opined. ‘The point is that the NPP government has been given four years to rule the country and Dr. Akoto subsequently nominated as the Agric Minister and considering their manifesto, it is premature to pronounce judgement on his delivery. What matters as Ghanaians is to support them to grow the economy and if things go as expected we give them the praise,’ Mr. Nortey added.
According to him, Dr. Akoto is one person that the Peasant Farmers and other CSOs have engaged all the time. This he added was especially so during the campaign by Peasant Farmers on the need for massive investments in the sector and some challenges facing the agric sector and he was very active, noting that they can’t forget his contribution.
Mr. Nortey expressed delight with what he sees as early indications of commitment by the minister particularly his assurances that his administration was going to put in extra measures to deal with the various challenges bedeviling the agric sector.
Mr. Nortey said the manifesto of the new Patriotic Party was more favourble towards farmers than that of the then governing party, the NDC. ‘Looking at the promises of the NPP, it tallies with some resolutions that the Peasant Farmers have been looking forward to for long and looking at all that in the NPP manifesto, Peasant Farmers believe that Dr. Akoto can deliver,’ Mr. Nortey noted.
He expressed the optimism that parliament will approve Dr. Akoto as the substantive Agric Minister. He rubbished calls from the Food Sovereignty Ghana not to approve Dr. Akoto’s nomination emphasizing that the minister’s stance on Genetically Modified Foods is no sufficient grounds that he can’t deliver.
Source: ritefmonline.org
