Djornobuah Alex Tetteh
New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentary candidate for Sefwi Akontombra in the Western Region is accusing the National Democratic Congress(NDC) government of discrimination in the distribution of farming inputs to farmers in the district which he said is killing the morale of cocoa farmers.
Djornobuah Alex Tetteh said the negative approach adopted by the Mahama administration towards the cocoa sector has affected general production of the cash crop which continues to be the backbone of Ghana’s economy.
“The farmers are always discriminated against in the distribution of inputs especially where they know you do not share the NDC views. This had gone on for too long and Ghana is becoming the loser,” the parliamentary aspirant told DAILY GUIDE via telephone yesterday.
He said currently, there is going to be low cocoa yield for the crop season and it is attributed to the NDC government’s bad policies coupled with poor weather conditions.
The aspirant said farmers are complaining bitterly about poor harvest and said they would need upward adjustment in prices to make up for the loss.
“The government has not increased the price for cocoa for some time now. A bag of cocoa is currently sold at GH¢425 but they want an increment without any further delay,” he said.
He said NDC policies have rendered cocoa farmers even poorer saying “most farmers are struggling to educate their children and the re-opening of the 2016/2017 academic year is going to make matters worse.”
“I will plead with the President and his cronies to stop sharing the V8s and other goodies to opinion leaders and attend to the real needs of the suffering masses at least before they leave office. People are suffering too much!”
Mr. Tetteh alleged that that NDC was in the business of sharing GH¢5 to the local people in order to get them to vote for them but said “the people are resolved to remove this NDC headache on December 7.”
By William Yaw Owusu