Dr. Afriyie Owusu Akoto
The Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Afriyie Owusu Akoto has debunked claims by an NPP activist on social media that he was prevented from establishing a fertilizer manufacturing company in the country.
The party activist made those claims among others in a video that has been trending on social media since last week.
However, the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Afriyie Akoto in a statement sighted by DGN Online rubbished the claim.
Below is the statement
My attention has been drawn to a video by a former NPP activist on social media who says I prevented him from establishing a fertilizer manufacturing company in Ghana.
First of all, he must be referring to a fertilizer blending factory NOT a fertilizer manufacturing plant. The latter requires the supply of natural gas as the basic input and requires 5 billion US Dollars of investment.
Since 2018 we have been talking to potential investors abroad to establish a fertilizer manufacturing plant at Jomoro newfound Region using our newfound gas discoveries by Tullow, etc.
There is no natural gas in Brong Ahafo to manufacture fertilizers. The grant of $100, 000 he claims was offered by the US Government cannot even build a fertilizer blending factory as he claims. It costs millions of dollars to put up such a factory.
Currently, Ghana has six fertilizer blending factories and none of them needed a permit from me to set up.
The comments made by this entrepreneur activist are not only full of mischief but pure propaganda of the NDC design! They must therefore be treated with the utter contempt they certainly deserve.’
BY Daniel Bampoe