The finance minister discloses plans of the government to build a cassava processing plant and other initiatives with the ” GHANA CARES Programme” inclusive in an attempt to improve the agricultural sector.
In accordance with section 28 of the Public Financial Management Act 921 and Article 179 of the 1992 constitution, the minister of finance is expected to present a review of the mid-year budget statement of the government of Ghana. In pursuant to this, the finance minister, Ken Ofori-Atta on Thursday, July 29th presented the 2021 mid-year budget which highlighted some initiatives and investment government plans to make to improve the agriculture sector.
He made mention of the cassava processing plant, the “Ghana CARES programme” and some investments amidst others. In his presentation, he said, “Mr Speaker, to modernize our agriculture sector, we are investing in initiatives that will improve production and productivity in the rice, poultry, soybean, and tomato sub-sectors this year.” The economy he said is on its path to recovery.
The cassava processing plant establishment was mentioned as part of the attempt government wants to make to keep its industrialization agenda moving. He disclosed that “specific interventions include support for the establishment of a cassava processing plant, provision of technical assistance to the garment and textile as well as the pharmaceutical industries.
Ken Ofori-Atta went on to assure farmers and the stakeholders of the agricultural sector that the plans of the government to modernize the agricultural sector by instituting some initiatives will help increase their productivity or output.
In an attempt to make this possible, he made mention of the Ghana CARES programme, a programme meant to transform the economy, place it back into the pre-pandemic times and make it better. The government will also, he revealed, invest in the technological and data sector of the agriculture industry. All these attempts and efforts are geared towards high productivity.
He said, that the program through digital technology will support the reform of the fertilizer subsidy system to increase productivity and prevent cases of smuggling. He disclosed that “This would be achieved by registering farmers for improved targeting.” This will give a database about the farmers such as biodata, crops cultivated, acreage, digital location of farms to track seed and fertilizer subsidy programmes he explained.
The minister disclosed that government will provide linking markets, facilitate equipment acquisition, promote relevant research he said, into the sub-sectors and also provide interest rate subsidies for approximately 1.2 million registered farmers by the end of February 2022.
Concerning the agriculture sector and in relation to the mid-year budget review, the government has assured all people especially farmers and associates of its positive intentions to modernize the agricultural sector.
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