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| A photo of locally produced rice. Source: Culled from the internet. |
I have always feared
for patients— the sick I mean— who find time to listen to or watch news about
Ghana or follow the country’s politics. I consider their plight as a suffering
soul being hit with coup de grâce. Indeed, it is only he who wishes for a quick
death that passionately follows these events with all their hearts.
It is not the case that
we do not have qualified journalists to do a good job here in Ghana. Far from
that. If I am not exaggerating, Ghana has great journalists that could compete
with their counterparts anywhere in the world. The issue, rather, is that often
these journalists’ stories reveal that the single scarcest commodity in the
country is common sense. Yes, a revelation of lack of common sense mainly on
the part of some of our leaders. That, which makes the listening to or watching
of such news depressing!
Few weeks ago, TV3’s Peter Quao Adattor travelled to
the Upper East Region of Ghana. He came back to Accra with a story that got almost
everybody in the TV3 newsroom
standing on their feet to express dismay.
The day we watched Mr.
Adattor’s story as aired on Midday Live
was on a Sunday afternoon. Rice farmers, especially in the valleys of Fumbisi
and Gbedembilisi in the Builsa South District, had bountifully produced bags of
rice. However, these farmers did not have [ready] market for their produce.
One farmer who spoke in
the ‘Rice Glut’ story said that in
order not to look on for their hundreds of bags to go waste, they were selling
on promotional basis. When the market women buy two bags of the rice, they are
given an extra bag each free of charge. Can you imagine!? As if that was not enough,
even before the farmers could get these traders to do the buying, in the first
place, they [farmers] would have to lure them by giving them one full guinea
fowl also for free. Certainly, this is financially a dangerous time to be a
rice farmer.
Then, the National
Buffer Stock Company moved in to assess the situation on the back of the reported
glut of rice. As predictable as the daily chaos at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle
Interchange, the Chief Executive Officer of the Buffer Stock Company, Hanan Abdul-Wahab,
promised these farmers of a ready market. That promise was actually to come
into fruition in two weeks’ time from the day of the visit by the hypocrite
fact-finding politicians.
As to whether this
promise has been fulfilled or not is not really my source of worry. The farmers
themselves did not believe that promise. What gets my head spinning is the
apparent mindless game we— as a nation— proudly play. I have neither attended
the University of Ghana Business School nor the London School of Economics. Nonetheless,
there are some problems that do not require one to hold a certificate in a
particular field before proffering a concrete solution to avert its occurrence
in the first place.
From the days of Diego
de Azambuja to the subsequent colonization of Africa by the greedy bustards,
the plight of the continent’s farmers has been the same. There are deplorable
roads linking farms to the cities and the preference of citizens going for
foreign products over same produced locally have remained unchanged.
You ask yourself why we
are so comfortable with this monumental failure and the answer is found right in
the bosom of the greedy politicians. They would quickly choose their comfort
over the plight of the masses. If not, why did they not find sense in proposing
that the millions of dollars that they had wanted to use to construct that
needless new chamber/parliament be used to, at least, give feeder roads to places
where we get our foods from?
Why did they not,
again, propose that such an amount be used to rigorously start a campaign to cut
Ghana’s umbilical cord of overdependence? Would that not have weaned majority
of our citizens off foreign goods? A lifestyle that only reflects what
pertained in the colonial days.
The underlying argument
here is that access to our farms and our preference for foreign goods hugely
contribute to the losses we see our farmers suffer. And, to curb this trend
goes beyond merely urging citizens to patronize locally produced rice [or any
of such].
Speaking in Ho, the Volta
Regional capital, to mark this year’s National
Farmers’ Day, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo repeated a mistake he
keeps committing. He urged Ghanaians to buy locally-grown rice.
Mr. President, because
of you I am likely to write a book that would probably be dubbed ‘How To Govern A Developing Nation’. The
truth is, we do not govern a developing nation by merely urging citizens to do
the right thing. You impose! Impose hefty tariffs on imported rice/foods and
other goods that our own people produce here. Why do we, for instance, allow an
overflow of importation of poultry products while poultry farmers in Dormaa in
the Bono Region alone could— to a large extent— feed the country?
And, should you think
of the ripple effect of these measures to break the shackles of our
underdevelopment, the formula to counter such [effect] is to let the nation
endure whatever hardships that would come with it. If it so happens that even
half of the state’s population would have to die of hunger, so be it. Those who
would survive would live a better life thereafter and learn sense that
overdependence on another state— especially on agriculture and health— is
dangerous.
This is exactly what
Richard Wright wrote to Dr. Kwame Nkrumah in a letter as captured in the
latter’s book, Dark Days In Ghana,
that, “I say to you publicly and frankly: The burden of suffering that must be
borne, impose it upon one generation! … Be merciful by being stern!”
Hello, Mr. President. I
guess I have given you a clue on how to effectively run your government. There
is no need telling Ghanaians that you and your wife cook local rice. How many
bags of local rice do you buy in a year as a family? Borrowing the book title
of the former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, ‘With All Due Respect’, the next time
you speak on this local rice, you must sound as a benevolent dictator in
telling your citizens to purchase such.
If I were you, when citizens
prove adamant buying, I would bill every public servant and SSNIT contributors a
bag of the rice say, every three months, by deducting them from the source of
their income. Even if everybody gets a cup of the rice, that will be fine. The
soldiers at the various barracks are tasked to ensure that households get their
deliveries and if they [citizens] will not eat it, they are at liberty to
donate to the orphanages.
Until the day I hear of
crazy measures as these to ensure we bridge the gap between the cities and
villages and get Ghanaians to eat what they grow and grow what they eat, the
so-called campaign on the purchase of local rice sounds but nonsense to my
ears. It will only yield marginal results!
What have Emelia Arthur
and Okyeame Kwame not done as ambassadors of the Made-In-Ghana campaign proper? You think about it and you ask
yourself the question posed by the name of a show on Asԑmpa FM, Ԑkↄsii Sԑn? To wit, ‘How did it end?’
The writer, Solomon Mensah, is a
broadcast journalist with Media General (TV3/3FM). Views expressed here are
solely his and do not, in anyway, reflect the editorial policy of his
organisation.
Twitter: @aniwaba
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