BEFORE THE celebration of the 31st National Farmers’ Day came alive today at Bolgatanga Girls Senior High School, Upper East Region, the National Farmers’ Award Winners Association was accusing government of not following the laid down procedures in the organization of the celebration.
The association has therefore demanded government surrendered the planning and organization of the annual celebration to its members after year’s event. Mr. Davis Korboe, Chairman of Award Winners Association in an exclusive interview with this reporter in Bolgatanga, said the association was not happy with the manner in which the celebration was planned this year.
According to him, government had not followed the normal patterns used in previous years to honour award winners. He explained that in previous years, farmers were taken to Accra for an orientation including going to the Akuafo Hall of the University of Ghana, Legon, where they received some excitation and automatically became fellows of that hall. They then climaxed their stay in Accra with a dinner night with the Vice President at the banquet hall before they were conveyed in one bus to the venue of the celebration.
Mr. Korboe said in rather strange and unexplained circumstances, government this year excluded those procedures. “I have to say with authority that as chairman of award winners association, it’s not right at all for them to do that and I think after the celebration, we need to have serious postmortem about these things…whether government is the one who is supposed to continue doing it or the private sector should do it.
Mr. Karboe hinted that his association will want to take over the organization of the celebration from the government henceforth. He emphasized that; “What we have been doing all these years is what we think we should practice. You don’t just move the awardees straight from their respective regions to the host region:”
He revealed that the substitute of dinning with the Vice President was a dinner night with the Upper East Regional Minister, Mr. James Tiigah, at his official residence.
Mr. Korboe also expressed disappointment in the government for slashing budgetary allocation to the agriculture sector for 2016 by a whopping Ghc 45m in spite of the sharp decline in agriculture this year. “I don’t think it’s the best….in agric you don’t talk politics because you and I sitting here will still eat our breakfast, lunch and super and so it (agric) doesn’t care whether one is in this political party or the other. The right thing as far as agric is concerned must be done – period!”
He observed that over the years, government had listened to only technocrats in planning agriculture programmes and detecting to farmers how those programmes should be carried out. This he said was also wrong and advised government to listen to farmers and not the technocrats alone.
The theme for the celebration was “Transform Ghana: Invest in Agriculture’’.
The theme for the celebration was “Transform Ghana: Invest in Agriculture’’.
Credit: William Nlanjerbor JALULAH/The Chronicle/Ghana
