President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, says his government has succeeded in saving Ghana cocoa sector which he inherited from the Mahama administration, ensuring that, currently, all the cocoa farmers are on the right direction.
According to President Akufo-Addo, “if we are to make any meaningful change in the lives of people, our efforts must be directed at cocoa. The majority of people can only feel a change in their lives when we develop agriculture.”
He indicated that “time has come for us to enter into different kinds of commercial interests. We are looking to seeing more of the processing and value-enhancing aspects of the development of the cocoa industry here in Ghana. That is a major preoccupation for my government, and we are fashioning policies to this end.”
The President made this known on Monday, 11th November 2019, when he spoke, as part of a panel including President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and President Paul Kegame of Rwanda, at the African Investment Forum’s “Invest in Africa’s Space” event, currently ongoing in Johannesburg, South Africa.
President Akufo-Addo said that the general posture of his government was to ensure the value-enhancing aspects of the exploitation of the country’s natural resources and move Ghana away from being a mere producer of raw materials.
The President added that the transformation of Ghanaian agriculture is one his government has been focused on since assuming office in January 2017, resulting in the institution of the programme for Planting for Food and Jobs, which has seen a revival of Ghanaian agriculture.
“Planting for Food and Jobs has proven to be a spectacular success. First of all, in the way it is addressing the availability of foodstuffs. We are now in the position, for the first time in over a decade, of exporting food stuffs to our neighbours. We are very keen in developing private sector interest, because Ghanaian agriculture is largely smallholder,” he added.
On the exploitation of Ghana’s considerable mineral resources, President Akufo-Addo told the gathering that Ghana is keen on adding value to these resources, and desisting from exporting them in their raw form, adding that “we are now trying to forge the policies to make it possible for these to be the subjects of investments.”
Source: Dailyviewgh.com | Dan Kwasi Prince
