Senyo Hosi, the former CEO of the Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors (CBOD), has urged Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, the minister of agriculture, to step down in order to prevent the sector’s impending collapse.
Mr. Hosi produced and signed a statement in which he criticized the management of the ministry and the inefficiencies coming from the Minister’s office as being inadequate.
Senyo Hosi stated, “Respectfully, the arm-chair analysis the Minister and/or MOFA conducts with a culture of “knowing everything,” without sufficient talks and engagements with industry, will take this country nowhere.
He further accused the Ministry of Agriculture of ignoring several correspondences after a proposal by the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Sagre Bambangi, was made seeking a collaboration “to help achieve a constructive example of investment success in rice production.”
He continued that “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.
“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.”
Senyo Hosi, who is also a rice farmer, declared the tenure of Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto as a complete failure due to his outfit’s “failure to structure the agricultural industry through policy to make it sustainably bankable and attractive for investment, to achieve the transformation we seek as a country.”
He also dared the minister to inform Ghanaians of the major subsectors within the agriculture sector that have been effectively de-risked, restructured and nurtured to promote sustainable investment and make Ghana a leader in that space.
In his concluding remarks, Senyo Hosi called on Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto to conduct an audit on the production yield, investment, and subsidy deployment information published by the ministry.
“I find it most unfortunate that despite being led by a Ph.D. Agric-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?” Senyo Hosi quizzed.
Mr Hosi’s letter was however in response to an earlier press statement issued on October 30, 2022, by the Ministry of Agriculture, in response to remarks and arguments Senyo Hosi made at a recently held agribusiness dialogue in Accra.
