Gov’t using failed PFJ programme as state resource looting platform – Minority

The Minority in Parliament has expressed the view that the launch of Phase II of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) programme is an admission by government that Phase I failed.

At a press briefing on Tuesday, the Deputy Ranking Member on the Committee on Food, Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs, Dr. Godfred Seidu Jasaw made the allegation that government is using the PFJ programme as a state resource looting platform.

“This a clear admission of our position that the PFJ programme had failed and that it was a mere state resource looting platform disguised as a flagship programme,” Dr. Godfred Seidu Jasaw said.

According to the Minority MP, Phase II of the PFJ programme will leave smallholder farmers impoverished.

“It’s just a way of telling us government can no longer support input subsidy and that farmers will be left in the hands of private commercial entities to negotiate and transact their own production input regimes based on market determinants.

“In fact, this new program will impoverish the smallholder farmer in a worse form as his faith will be determined by market forces,” Dr. Godfred Seidu Jasaw argued.

President Akufo-Addo on Monday, August 28, launched Phase II of the Programme at the University of Development Studies, Tamale.

Phase Two of the PFJ Programme is a five-year master plan for the transformation of agriculture in Ghana.

The objective is to transform and modernise Ghana’s agriculture through the development of a selected commodity value chain, with active private sector participation.