Government committed to improving agriculture productivity – Akufo Addo assures

The government is committed to turning around the economy of the country for the benefit of all and sundry, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said.

He added: “I want the economic statistics on Ghana to shift significantly to industrial, agricultural, and infrastructural developments, by the time I leave the scene.”

He said the government was determined and focused this time, to ensure economic transformation by improving agricultural productivity, as he observed that many people had of late, been speaking ill about food security in the country.

The President mentioned the planting for food and job initiative saying it was a good programme that would need to be deepened and consolidated for “food security in the country to be a major component in the life of everyone”.

Nana Akufo-Addo was speaking on the economic recovery plan of the country on a local radio station in Kumasi, on Saturday, as part of a four-day working visit to inspect ongoing projects in some parts of the Ashanti Region.

He said the government was decisively accelerating the implementation of key economic policies to bring about industrialiSation that would create more jobs for the people of Ghana.

Another focused priority, he mentioned, was housing for the people as well as hospital infrastructure and stressed on agenda 111 that “I will do it, even though many people do not believe me, as they did when I mentioned the free senior high school project”.

The President touched on the NABCO beneficiaries saying that by the end of the year 2021, another batch would pop up and was happy that out of the first batch of 100,000 beneficiaries recruited in 2018, 49,000 had transitioned into many institutions and organizations.

He turned his attention to the Boankra project saying that the Ministries of Finance and Roads and Transport were studying the documents of some investors for approval to start work soon.

The project, he said, was dear to the government, and “I want to be remembered that I did the Boankra project”.

On the country’s readiness to manufacture its own COVID-19 vaccine, the President intimated that the future as bright as the “European Union has agreed to partner with us to produce own our vaccine.”

He said the committee on the National Vaccine Institute, led by its Chairman, Prof. Frimpong Boateng, made the visit to the European Union for the negotiations and hoped that soon Ghana would develop the vaccine.

Saturday’s inspection tour took the President to Atwima Koforidua to inspect the Darko Farms Poultry Process under the One District One Factory initiative.

Inspection of JA Kufuor Senior High School at Daba, the 15.2-kilometer Ohwimase-Twedie road at Twedie which is being undertaken by Asabea Engineering Company.

The President paid a courtesy call on the chief of Akropong and Nananom of Akropong.

Nana Appiah Sarfo Katanka, chief of Akropong, appealed to the government to address the deplorable roads in the area.