Ashanti Regional Minister Hon Simon Osei Mensah has agreed to the fact that it is better the country concentrate on improving upon local production rather than depending mostly on foreign imports of goods.
The minister’s statement come days after the country saw an
artificial shortage of food on the Ghanaian market after President Nana Addo
Dankwa Akufo-Addo announced a partial lockdown in some part of Greater Kumasi
and Greater Accra regions.
“If we had empowered local crop producers like those at Akumadan,
the story would have been good and better for all of us by now. The virus has
thought us to go for domestication”. Hon Simon Osei Mensah has said.
According to him, the manner in which prices of foodstuffs
shot up on the Ghanaian market all of a
sudden indicates that, food security in the country is not protected hence the
country may suffer in the near future if coronavirus does not vanish from the
country in the shortest possible time.
Speaking in an interview on Kumasi radio Hello Fm monitored by MyNewsGH.com, Mr. Simon Osei Mensah noted, “when we produce locally, it will create employment, the youth will get jobs but what people forget is that, the more you work the more you earn money. They will directly or indirectly increase your income capacity. These are some of the things that move a country because all development countries concentrated on employment creation”.
“All we pray for is that, God deliver us from COVID-19 and
after that, I think there should be a conscious efforts and education for
positive change for us to consume local products”, he added
The minister in his interview further encouraged Ghanaians
to inculcate the love for locally produced products instead of going in for
foreign goods.
Source: MyNewsGH.com / Syxtus Eshun / 2020
