Dr. Alhassan Sulemana Anamzoya
CHIEF EXECUTIVE Officer (CEO) of the Northern Development Authority (NDA), Dr. Alhassan Sulemana Anamzoya, recently met with the CEO of Intervalle Geneve SA, Njack Kane, an internationally acclaimed business consultant in the rice value chain across West Africa, to pursue a strategic working relationship geared towards the overall development of the northern zone.
Intervalle currently leads the rice consortium funded by AGRA /KFW that includes the John A Kufuor Foundation, Directorate Crop and Services of MOFA and Hopeline Institute.
Kane is also an official, Government of Ghana Consultant for Planting for Food and Jobs—the rice chapter and other high profiled projects such as One District, One Factory (1D1F).
The high level meeting, aimed at leveraging the expertise and strengths of Intervalle Geneva SA to explore windows of financing and execution in aid of developing catalytic multi stakeholder projects within the NDA zone.
This included structuring proposals to attract foreign and national funding, both preparation and execution for irrigation, farming and value chain infrastructure with the ultimate goal to stimulate growth in the local economy and also improve livelihoods with specific focus on youth employment
Dr. Anamzoya was emphatic that the NDA, under his leadership and in close cooperation with the Minister of Food and Agriculture, was poised to live its mandate of ensuring the socio-economic development of the zone with selected cash crops in the value chains such as rice, sugar cane, soya bean and others playing a major role.
Kane, on his part, pledged the zeal and commitment of his company and that of Coalition International Partners to providing their unwavering support to the NDA. According to him, the NDA zone held a great deal of potential for development and therefore advised the leadership of NDA to identify and package projects that were deemed as low hanging fruits to kick start the process.
In a related development, the NDA was in advanced talks with the Savannah Agricultural & Trading Company Ltd to explore a public private partnership agreement which targets the advancement of rice farming, out-grower schemes and value chain.
The PPP agreement, when implemented, is expected to serve as a major Internal Generation Fund (IGF) mechanism for the NDA.
A Deputy CEO of the NDA, Patrick Seidu, in a remark, highlighted the importance of speeding up the review process. He extended profound appreciation to Njack Kane and Samuel Jabanyite, CEO of Savannah Agricultural & Trading Company Ltd, for the anticipated partnership.
BY Samuel Boadi