The Ghana Agricultural and Rural Development Journalists Association (GARDJA) has petitioned the President Nana Akuffo Addo to reform the fertilizer subsidy programme which will directly affect the targeted beneficiaries.
“We write to you from the Ghana Agricultural and Rural Development Journalists Association (GARDJA), petitioning your good office to reform the mode of operation of the Fertilizer Subsidy Programme and put farmers at the centre of the scheme. This will ensure efficiency and transparency in the programme” the statement from the group to Mynewsafric.com reads.
GARDJA said its investigations have revealed that although the distribution guidelines for the subsidized fertilizers to the farmers allow the maximum purchase of not more than 15 bags per farmer, this directive is being breached for the benefit of “politically connected people” in the districts. It said non-farmers are able to acquire subsidized fertilizers because of the weak administration of the programme, lamenting how “so called” prospective beneficiaries don’t have to prove they are farmers before getting the subsidized fertilizers.
“As media practitioners working within the agricultural space, we spent the latter part of 2020 and the early part of this year, gathering perspectives from farmers across the country on what their major challenges that needed attention are. And the issue of fertilizer subsidy has emerged top on the list of farmers’ major concerns”.
GARDJA has also gathered that, annually, the government allocates about 207 million Ghana Cedis for the scheme to import fertilizers, which are subsequently supposed to be sold to farmers at 50% of the original market price. But the farmers say they are not benefiting, raising questions about where exactly the subsidized fertilizers go. “An average of three out of every four farmers across the country we have engaged is not benefitting from the subsidy scheme” it added.
The group also noted with concerns how Minister of Agriculture Dr. Owusu Afriyie-Akoto, had recently acknowledged how farmers sometimes travel from the northern part of the country to Accra to sit outside his office, looking for coupons to purchase the subsidized fertilizers, which majority of them never gets because unscrupulous persons have connived with “saboteurs” to rather steal these discount coupons from farmers, and many other stories of corruption in the distribution of the subsidized fertilizer programme .
However, GARDJA has made some recommendations which it wants to see in the reformed implementation of subsidized fertilizer programme.
“We will thus make the following recommendations for your very good office to consider as a way to sustain the scheme;
• Set up a committee to review the operations of the Fertiliser Subsidy Programme since it was launched in 2008. The committee should evaluate the modus operandi of the scheme and make appropriate recommendations for changes for the benefit of ordinary farmers.
• Put farmers at the centre of the programme. There exist several farmer groups including the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana, National Farmers and Fishermen Award Winners Association, Ghana National Farmers and Fishermen Association, among others, which have members across the country and well-structured management systems at the regional and district levels. Coordinate the management of the entire subsidy scheme (from fertilizer import bidding contracts to distribution) with these farmer groups so they can ensure the right beneficiaries are getting them.
• Use your good office to work with your colleague Minister for Interior and Attorney General to bring those who have been involved in the smuggling and theft of subsidized fertilisers to book, so this serves as a deterrent to others”.
“We all can’t wait any longer for a coordinated and efficient rollout of measures to sanitize the Fertilizer Subsidy Programme. Ghanaian taxpayers cannot continue losing money to an opaque scheme and farmers cannot wait any longer for things to be done right” the statement from GARDJA stated.
