Ignore NPP claims that Agric better under Akufo-Addo than Mills, Mahama combined – Former Minister

Former Minister for Food and Agriculture of the erstwhile Mahama administration, Alhaji Mohammed Muniru Limuna, has debunked claims by the NPP government that agriculture today under the Nana Akufo-Addo government is far better than agriculture under President Mills and President Mahama combined.

Responding to a newspaper publication by the DayBreak Newspaper on Thursday, 21 July 2022 dubbed '' Nana Addo Beats Mills, Mahama in Agricultural Growth”, Alhaji Limuna described the publication as the biggest joke of the century.

The former agriculture minister said that the reality on the grounds is exposing the ‘cooked’ figures used to show case the performance of the sector.

“It is clear everything is on the decline in the sector, for instance food production in the country is on a serious decline as many farmers cannot afford the high cost of Agricultural inputs,” he said.

He mentioned the very high cost of agricultural inputs under the NPP government as some of the reasons why agriculture keeps declining in Ghana.

“A bag of fertilizer which was less than Gh100 under John Mahama is today selling at almost GHS500,” he bemoaned.

He advised the government not to be playing politics with agriculture.

“I have always maintained that the Agriculture sector of the economy is so sensitive that we need not play partisan politics with it.”

Meanwhile, cabinet last mouth set up a five-member ministerial committee to investigate the high prices of food items in the country in order to advise the government on actions to take to level-off prices.

Membership of the committee include Minister of Transport, Kwaku Asiamah; the Minister of Trade and Industry, Alan Kyerematen; the Caretaker Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Cecilia Abena Dapaah; the Minister of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, Dan Botwe, and the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto.

Dr Afriyie Akoto mentioned high cost of fuel, the sky-rocketing cost of fertiliser as a result of the Russia-Ukraine war, as well as chemicals and farming inputs as some of the price build-up factors in the high cost of food items on the market but was quick to give assurance that the food situation in the country was solid, adding that “some people are just out there to make outrageous profit at the expense of both the farmer and the consumer”.

---classfmonline