Business magnate and former CEO of the Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors, Senyo Hosi, has reacted to a rejoinder issued by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture on his assertion of losing millions of cedis after relying on data from the Ministry for production from his farm.
In the rejoinder by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the Ministry wants Mr Hosi to furnish the ministry with information to enable it to establish claims that he lost millions of cedis by relying on data from the ministry.
The information the Ministry wants includes the nature of investments into which millions of Ghana cedis were sunk, the source of MoFA data that informed the failed investments, whether there was engagement with any technical directorate or senior official of the Ministry on the specific data related to the investments,
The following is therefore Mr Hosi’s reply to the demands asked of him by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture:
I have sighted a press release issued by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) dated 30th October and titled as per above. The publication is supposed to be a response to my arguments and representations at the just-ended 3Business Agribusiness dialogue duly attended by MOFA officials. I hereby respond as follows.
1. My company, located in Adaklu-Tsriefe, producers of GoGo rice and Mommie rice hosted His Excellency Nana Akuffo Addo at our farm and factory. He was accompanied by the then deputy Minister of Agriculture (Dr. Bambangi), Hon. Alan Kyeremanteng, Hon. Peter Amewu, Hon. Kan-Dapaah, Hon Amoako-Atta, Hon. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Hon. Dr. Achibald Letsa and other government dignitaries. Please note that my investment is purely private and not a beneficiary of 1D1F funding.
At a durbar held in their honour, the deputy minister at MOFA, proposed a collaboration with our company to help achieve a constructive example of investment success in rice production. Pursuant to that, we wrote to MOFA on the 24th of December 2019 and followed up with reminders on the proposal. Three years on, we are yet to be dignified with a response.
2. If you were really concerned about the commercial and social viability of investments in the sector as you seem to express, you would have been more responsible than ignore communication from one of the biggest rice investors in that district, region and the country. Respectfully, my address is known to your office and so if you are truly minded about my pain and the merits of my argument, you would have reached out to me directly while sharing public interest in mitigating concerns of industry. I therefore do not find your Ministry under the current leadership an honest policy partner in the development of my business to warrant any submission of my investment details for your consideration.
I however entreat you to honestly audit the production, yield, investment, and subsidy deployment information you publish.
economist, the analytical capacity of the MOFA is one of mediocrity. Just so you are reminded, despite the presence of MOFA in practically every district in the country, it is the Minister’s methodology that the distribution of fertilizer equals a given quantum of employment. Since when did the distribution of fertilizer become a yardstick for acquiring employment data on a major policy intervention as the Planting for Food and Jobs? And I believe these bags of fertilizer that the Minister adopted as the basis for the Ministry’s employment data included the bags of fertilizer, he found being smuggled out of the country on unmanned donkeys he could only watch and do nothing about.
7. Respectfully, the arm-chair analysis the Minister and/or MOFA does with a culture of ‘knowing everything’, without adequate consultations and collaborations with industry, will take this country nowhere. Your conduct and management of this matter is suboptimal and respectfully, proves your unfitness to lead in the policy space for this sector. It is no wonder that we have spent billions of cedis and yielded sub-optimal effect, under all kinds of sloganeering and questionable data reportage.
8. I respectfully call on the Minister and his Chief Director to resign with immediate effect to save this industry from total collapse.
I remain
