The Acting Executive Director of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana, Bismark Owusu Nortey, has launched a stinging critique of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) programme initiated by the former President Akufo-Addo, labelling it as one that was “perpetrated on fraud” and exploited by opportunists at the expense of farmers.
Speaking on Breakfast Daily on Friday, April 25, Nortey called for a critical look into how government-led agricultural interventions are often turned into money-making avenues for well-connected individuals, rather than genuine lifelines for farmers.
“The issue about how we seem to use such programmes to serve as an opportunity for people to make money at the expense of beneficiaries is something that we need to look at. The PFJ offered an opportunity for people to rip the state and make money at the expense of farmers. I think the PFJ was perpetrated on fraud,” he said.
According to Nortey, PFJ’s challenges began at the very start of procurement, where he alleged that several companies with no background in importing fertilisers were awarded contracts. These questionable contracts, he argued, opened the door for systemic abuse.
“There were several companies that were not into the import of fertilisers but somehow had contracts to bring fertilisers,” he stressed.
He further described how the distribution process also failed farmers. Stating that, “People who were not farmers were given fertilisers, to the extent that some of them were smuggled out of the country. Invoices were generated, receipts were made, and forms were filled to indicate that a particular district was supplied with fertiliser, while in fact, they were not.
This, to him, was evidence that PFJ, which was launched as a flagship programme to boost food production, was compromised at multiple levels.
“The expectation is that the Feed Ghana Programme should not go that way. I am hopeful that we should see some remarkable gains, food prices stabilising, and the challenges facing the agriculture sector well, we should solve half of them with this programme,” he added.