Host of Good Morning Ghana programme on Metro TV, Randy Abbey, has expressed worry about how government is implementing the Planting for Foods and Jobs programme.
According to him, it is worrying that with a major component of the factors driving inflation being food, there is yet to be any concrete report about whether or not government has evaluated the programme since its inception.
Speaking on the Wednesday, March 16, 2022 edition of his programme, he lamented why government continued to throw money at the programme without any known evaluation.
“Look at the money we have thrown at Planting for Food and Jobs, food is driving inflation.
“I don’t even know if after these four or five years, we have sat down to evaluate this whole Plating for Food and Jobs thing and whether we got it right, but we are still "throwing money" at it,” he added.
Veteran journalist Kwesi Pratt reacting to Randy’s concern accused the government of throwing money at propaganda instead of a sustainable programme.
“Are we throwing money at food or we are throwing money at propaganda. Propaganda doesn’t produce food,” he stated.
Government increases funding for PFJ
Government in early 2021 stated that it will spend GH¢614million (US$98 million) on the PFJ programme for the 2022 implementation year.
The amount represented an increase from GH¢439million (US$70million) spent in the 2021 planting season.
The increase in allocation by 39 percent in 2022 is expected to have a corresponding increase in the number of targeted beneficiaries, and also help clear all outstanding debts owed to input suppliers, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture confirmed to the B&FT.
Total PFJ allocations of GH¢614million this year constitute about 59.5 percent of the total budget for the Food and Agriculture Ministry (MoFA) allocation for 2022 GH¢1.1billion.
About the PFJ programme
Planting for Food and Jobs is a flagship agricultural Campaign of the Government, with five (5) implementation modules.
The first module PFJ (Crops) aims to promote food security and immediate availability of selected food crops on the market and also provide jobs.
This module was officially launched by H. E. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo at Goaso on April 19, 2017 in the then Brong Ahafo Region.
The five Modules are:
• Food Crops (PFJ)
• Planting for Export and Rural Development (PERD)
