Agric Minister’s Press Secretary writes: The real story behind the plantain politics
In 2018, Ghana for the first time experienced a massive plantain glut. Farmers across the country complained about lack of market for their plantain produce.
Amid this unfortunate situation, there were increasing calls from concerned Ghanaians on the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to do something about the sad situation, in order to alleviate the suffering of farmers whose produce were rotting away and were being forced to give it away at cheap prices.
At Kumasi Race Course and other parts of the country, including Agogo and Konongo, the plantain was virtually rotten without buyers; traders and farmers alike kept counting their losses.
In fact, a prominent Chief in the Ashanti Region was on record to have said that food had become so cheap that if one dared to cause trouble in his area, that fellow would be beaten with plantain.
Amid this, a concerned citizen (name withheld) sent to the Honourable Minister of Food and Agriculture, a video of a bunch of plantains he had bought at 5 cedis on his way to Accra.
Whilst praising the Minister for ensuring that food prices had become cheaper to the extent that a bunch of plantain was being sold at five cedis, he equally implored the Minister to devise ways of adding value to the raw plantain, to reduce the post-harvest losses.
Of course, as a Minister whose preoccupation is to ensure that every Ghanaian can afford quality and affordable food, he was very happy that at least food is cheap and the vulnerable are equally benefitting from the PFJ windfall.
He would often share the story to us with mixed feelings.
This, for some time, became a reference point for and anytime he got the opportunity to talk about prices of food on the market, he would cite the story to back his claims. Last Thursday’s Press Briefing was no exception.
In fact, ESSOKO, a leading market price survey outlet, in several of its monthly monitoring, corroborated the fact that prices of food items had become stable, until the emergence of COVID-19.
Without sounding too defensive, considering the fact that the Minister himself admitted he did not avert his mind to the particular year, it must be put on record as his mouthpiece that his statement was not actually in reference to current prevailing trends on the market, though the video appeared explicitly so.
Probably, the Minister should have situated his statement in the proper context by adding the timelines, considering the fact that he was doing a comparative analysis, using the last four years as his basis. Suffice to say that the Minister was taken out of context, though he inadvertently did not cite the particular year to buttress his claim.
He did indeed admit on the same platform that the partial lockdown, which the President imposed, led to panic buying, and naturally resulted in a hike of foodstuffs and other essentials, including sanitisers.
However, in the course of the lockdown, the minister appealed to the public to avoid panic buying as there was enough food to last us the entire duration of the lockdown. Indeed, a few weeks into partial lockdown, traders complained of low patronage of their produce. Further research on the markets proved that prices were stabilising after the ‘COVID-19-induced’ panic-buying price hikes.
While one cannot fault the media for choosing to highlight just the plantain bit although the Minister, in his two-hour or so briefing, did touch on serious issues about the country’s agriculture and gave wonderful statistics, I thought it was appropriate for me to lay the facts bare and give further insight into the ‘story’ behind the statement made by the Minister.
He has received several criticisms from various social media platforms since the video was put out there. Some are constructive and others are full of propaganda.
It is, however, my wish to state unequivocally that the Minister never had any intention or whatsoever to make any false claim, as being portrayed by a section of the media.
Indeed, his intentions for making the statement was nothing more than to buttress his point and that of several surveys that prices of basic food items like maize, yam, cassava, sorghum, soybean and of course plantain, had become relatively stable due to the intervention of Planting for Food and Jobs.
To the extent that Ghana has become a net exporter of maize and currently does not import raw soybean to meet the increasing demand from the local poultry industry.
Through the intervention of PFJ, the demand for local rice has soared and for the first time in 2019, Ghana experienced a temporary rice glut, we can only rejoice at our gains and continue to encourage farmers to embrace the initiative as we enter the fourth year of its implementation.
Indeed, never in the history of this country has agriculture witnessed massive growth and development in all facets like we have seen over the last three and a half years.
From food crops to vegetables, tree crops as well as livestock, the agriculture sector is on its way to recapturing its glory as the backbone of the country’s economy and the trailblazer for the economic transformation envisioned by the government of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
Ghana, we will continue to give glory to God for the abundance of rains and his blessings and also to the President for his unalloyed commitment to improving the lives of farmers and Ghanaians in general.
The Honourable Minister simply goofed. There is no need to right this wrong. He might have said that for political expediency
If a whole minister can lie, what about the normal party members?
The govt is full of lies. I’m not surprise at all. Let’s change this cronyism, corrupt and inept government. No major infrastructure for the last two to three years
We all do understand what the Agric minister said. No further explanation and elaboration is required
There is no inadvertence in what the minister did. Stop making flimsy excuses for him. His act was shameful. The man chose to compare what a bootlicker had told him last year to the price of platain four years ago. Not 2 or 3 years ago. He opted to do politics when we required him to speak like a minister of state. If he didn’t have current market prices for plantain, he just had to be honest to tell us he didn’t know. What he did was to deliberately deceive us and tell us in the face that we were all stupid and gullible.
That is far from inadvertence.
We heard him loud and clear, he categorical lied and you have also come to compound the issue by also lying. We all went to school the same way you did, there is no need to come and explain to us or you think we are class one children who need to be thought one thing over again and again.
The minister is not honest to the people.
What has Planting for food and Jobs got to do with Plantain? Let’s agree that some time back prices of plantain became very cheap, is it the work of PFJ? What input did the ministry input to ensure plenty plantain harvest? Did the ministry provide the plantain sucker or they dug the hole in which the plantain was planted? Scammers in government.
Why do you even want to boast of past glory? What is worthy about an unsustainable growth? Dishonesty is the current benchmark of this administration. Should electorates choose this crop of NPP again, then we will all know what this nation shands for.
The minister simply lied just like his bosses. NPP and lies are bed fellows
This useless explanation does not hold water. The minister was able to compare the year of the opposition party to their winning powers but cannot compare now and when he received the video.What an explanation? Anyway continue with your stupid damage controls.