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The National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Savannah Region has called on the Minister for Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, to apologise and retract over comments he made which they deem as demeaning to persons from the Northern part of Ghana.

The party says Dr Akoto sought to suggest in an interview aired on Accra-based Joy TV on Wednesday, 30 October 2019, that the government’s flagship Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) programme has benefitted people of the North to the extent that not only are they now financial elevated to buy themselves motorbikes, but they are now able to build cement houses and roof them with modernised materials.

“We find these false statements very insulting and grossly disrespectful to we indigenes of the Northern parts of the country and as such we give the Minister for Food and Agriculture Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto an ultimatum of 24hours to retract and apologise for the denigration or face the consequences,” Savannah Regional NDC Communication Officer, Malik Basintale, stated in a press release on Thursday, 31 October 2019.

Debunking claims by the minister that the PFJ programme has been a success and yielding positive returns, Mr Basintale argued that “farmers now cry of high prices of raw materials causing an increase in prices of commodities at the market centres affecting both sellers and buyers. Importation of rice alone have risen from about $500million in 2016 to more than $1.1billion in 2018. The dollar rate is still on a marathon rise amidst huge ‘ghost’ exportation of food”.

The statement challenged the minister to point to one farmer in the North who has been successful as a result of participating in the PFJ programme and has gained monetary returns in order to build cement and block houses with modern roofs, in addition, to the purchase of motorbikes as he alleged.

“Failure to do so, we call for his outright dismissal and demand an unqualified apology from the government for the misconduct,” Mr Basintale added in the statement.