The Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto is blaming sellers for the current hike in food prices.
Dr. Owusu has said most of the prices of foodstuffs sold in the urban areas have been tripled, hence causing the current hike in food price across the country.
According to the minister, people go to the producing areas to purchase, for example, a basket of tomatoes for 150 cedis and then increase the sales price up to around 400 cedis in the urban areas.
Sharing his words;
The problem that we are facing about high cost of food is nothing to do with the shortage of food in the markets. You go to the producing areas, you will see exactly what I am talking about, I am just coming back five weeks ago, there is plenty of stocks and maize not even for this year, this year’s harvest is yet to come, we are talking of leftover last year’s crops.
The issue is, you go and buy a basket of let’s say 150 cedis of tomatoes, and then it comes to Kumasi and suddenly becomes 400 cedis, so there is some profiteering going on.
Dr. Owusu has assured Ghanaians that the government ensures there is food in abundance. This is achieved by planting food and jobs initiatives.
Without Planting For Food and Jobs we’ll be going as hungry as our neighbors around West Africa who are now coming to Ghana as the bread basket to pick our surpluses to the point that we even had to limit it by saying we are temporary banning export of our produce to the neighboring countries.
Of course other west African countries are going hungry that’s why they’re coming to Ghana to pick our food. Our surpluses and you’ll just have to travel to Ejura and other places to see those days the number plates of trucks crisscrossing Ghana, picking up surpluses to feed their own countries.
As far as Kano in Nigeria, they were coming here to buy our rice.
