Information Bill will Affirm the Sovereignty of the PeopleSays Agyenim-Boateng

The Minister designate for Information, James Agyenim-Boateng said the Information Bill before Parliament when passed would reaffirm the sovereignty of the people as owners of the government who deserve accountability from those they give power to.

He said the bill would help facilitate information flow that could also help journalists to report accurately without speculation.

He was speaking in Accra before the Appointments Committee of Parliament to justify his appointment as the right man for the post of deputy Minister designate for Information.

The simply dressed Radio Gold ace presenter, in a blue flowing embroidery gown with slippers to match was very composed, careful and candid in his answers, especially questions that he had no knowledge on.

He said the airwaves were flooded with 'crisis infested' language which could lead to anarchy within the society if not checked, and this can be corrected with the enactment of a broadcasting law.

This law, Mr. Ageynim-Boateng said would regulate the activities of broadcasters, especially what they put on air and what not to. He said he would approach his work with professionalism in the management of state information, adding that whoever makes an allegation must have the courage to prove it. “Those who allege must prove,” he said.

On what the Member for Abuakwa South, Hon Atta Akyea called duplication of roles that could lead to conflict with the government appointing about six Spokespersons including the Communication director, Presidential spokesperson and the Minister of Information and her two deputies, Mr. Agyenim-Boateng said as a team player he would be able to handle his position creditably without any problem.

He said he would manage state information ethically, keeping those that were secret at that, and those that need to be shared with the public would be shared.

A Veterinary practitioner, Dr. Tia Alfred Sugri, a nominee for Minister of Agriculture designate said his main priority area when given the nod would be to increase poultry production in Ghana. He said he would do this by encouraging local breed of poultry, which according to him were fast breeders.

However, he said what affected the local breeds was the Newcastle disease that affected them, resulting in massive death of the fowls during the harmattan season.

He said this problem could be solved by developing vaccines with the help of the Agricultural Research Institutes to be able to fight the Newcastle disease and, therefore, reduce the mortality rate among the local fowls.

He said the reason why banks were reluctant to give credit facilities to farmers was that they saw farming as a high risk venture. He said the inability of the local farmer to produce poultry was the high cost of feed as against the small scale of their farm holds.

He said where production was on a large scale, the cost of production becomes low which he promised to encourage the production of grains to make poultry feeds cheaper for farmers.

He encouraged farmers to go into cooperative unions to be able to access loans from the banks.

He said he would work hard to modernize agriculture to increase production, by helping to make tractor services available to the farmers, vaccines to fight diseases and storage facilities to store produce or process them into secondary products to make farmers gain from their toils.

Hon. Nii Amasah Namoale, who is also the Minister designate for Agriculture, on his part said he would educate the youth who take delight in going to fishing at the expense of going to school, to accept the fact that education would help them perform well in their fishing business than when they are illiterates.

He promised to correct the notion of farming not seen to be a lucrative venture by using successful farmers such national farmers and award winners to be used as mentors to educate the youth.

Mr. Yaw Effah-Baafi, who is the Minister designate for Agriculture said marketing farm produce was a problem, especially when there was a glut, because the farmers were unfortunately left to their fate and he promised to reverse the trend when given the nod.

The next to appear was Ms Anima Wilson, the deputy Minister designate for Ashanti region.