The National Sanitation Day Needs Mental Sanitation to Survive

The first round of the National Sanitation Day was climaxed at the Brong Ahafo region, having travelled all the ten regions of Ghana. This initiative, no doubt is a monumental exercise that shouldn’t be left to die out.  Rather, it should be promoted to ensure that the country rid of filth that is gradually becoming a mental tumor in our country’s quest to remain clean.

The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, as well as the good people of Ghana who made time out of their busy schedules to partake in the exercise in this first round should be commended for their unrelenting effort so far.

The National Sanitation Day was initiated at the heels of the outbreak of cholera which claimed so many lives in the country.  Like the proverbial vulture who always decides to build its shed when the rain sets in and forgets thereof when the rain subsides, it is often said that Ghana is quick to react when a disaster strikes but relaxes thereof as soon as the problem is over.  But in this instance, the programme is still ongoing and I pray that it defies this Ghanaian notion.

Several programmes have been launched by successive governments since independence but many of such programmes often experienced a shorter lifespan because of apathy and lack of enforcement.

Although the National Sanitation Day has been largely successful so far, they’ve been many reported news stories about the level of apathy that is gradually lacing its boot to cripple this laudable initiative.

For us to sustain this initiative, fast-forward, the Ministry of Local Gov’t and Rural Development should endeavor to increase public education on the need for people to volunteer their time and energy during this important national exercise. This would convince more people to see the exercise as a national exercise worth sacrificing for rather than a political one.

Government should also consider passing a law that will give a legal arm to the exercise and compel people to actively engage in the exercise. Defaulters of the law should be punished to serve as deterrent to other people. Growing up as a child, there were Sanitary Inspectors who were much dreaded each time they went on an inspection exercise and whipped discipline into people. A law will give a similar force to this exercise.

The Local Gov’t Ministry should also seek private partnership, where private sector workers would also take a front-lead role in the exercise. The ministry could also get sponsorship packages which may come in the form of T-shirts, hand gloves, pick axes, dustbins etc.  Awards scheme could also be instituted to recognize regions and organizations which give massive participation, as well as individuals who dedicate themselves to the exercise.

Media organizations, institutions of higher learning, celebrities and the civil society should take active role during the exercise to conscientise the ordinary citizens that the exercise is a national affair and should be seen as such. If the ordinary citizens see doctors, lawyers, media practitioners, musicians, actor/actresses, etc join the campaign, it will renew ordinary citizen’s spirit of nationalism and dedication which is currently waning in the exercise.

Ghana can only move forward if we eschew apathy, politicization of national issues and sabotage.  We need to imbibe the spirit of volunteerism in the younger generation so that people will learn how to die a little more for our dear nation. As the former US president, John F. Kennedy was famously quoted, “ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country”. God bless our homeland Ghana!

Writer: Abdul-Karim Mohammed Awaf
Service Personnel: Graphic Communication Group Limited
Accra-Ghana

A Slip of the Doctor’s Knife May Kill One, But a Slip of the Journalist Pen Kills Millions.

 

 The media industry has seen a tremendous growth since its inception, and the hitherto concealed matters are now in public spaces just with the click of a button. The proliferation of the media has deepened the democratic credentials of Ghana, as well as served as the mouth-piece of the socially-handicapped in our societies.

The quashing of the Circuit Court decision that saw Charles Antwi jailed for 10 years after the suspected mentally derailed fellow went to the church where the president worships with a gun was largely made possible by the loud-mouth of the media which gave the matter the prominence it resonated.

Despite the phenomenal role the media have played and continue to play, there have been concerns about unprofessional conducts by some media practitioners. Some journalists have involved themselves in scandals unwarranted of the profession, hence, dragging the image of the industry into the mud.

Just some recent past, Asamoah Gyan, the Ghana’s skipper’s sexual affair with a 22 years student, Sarah Kwablah, which was debated in the court of public opinion saw a journalist indicted as having demanded money from the Shanghai-based star, failure of which the said journalist threated to publish a sexual video of the footballer and the lady in the center of the controversy.

During the 2012 election petition hearing at the Supreme Court , as well as the hearing of the Justice Djemefe’s Commission of Enquiry which was mandated to probe into Ghana’s participation in the 2014 World Cup  in Brazil, several people were cited for contempt of court including journalists who in true essence, were supposed to shape opinions and guard public utterances. These incidences and many others have raised a lot of red-flags about the level of professionalism of some journalist.

In my media class, I questioned my lecturer why journalists are often touted as professionals, when in reality, some journalists do not have such word either in their dictionary or their conduct. Unlike medicine, law, nursing, pharmaceutical and the rest where people are certified before they can call themselves professional, journalism is not the same. This has given room for any person who can afford a notepad and a pen to call him or herself a journalist. Just as we have quack-doctors, I believe the number of quack- journalists in this country far exceed the well-trained journalists.

 The only difference, I believe,  between the “quacks” in medicine and those in the media is that whilst flouters in medicine are made to face the law, those in the media are rather given more audience and are made to go scot-free all in the name of free speech. The phenomenon, perhaps, is because society perceives that a slip in the knife of a doctor can cause a life to be lost but the slip of a journalist might not have such a devastating effect.

This view, in my candid opinion, is a misplaced judgment or what the legal luminaries would refer to as miscarriage of justice. As much as the media have contributed greatly to the development of free speech in Ghana and by extension, the world, some utterances of the media have resulted in the death of tonnes of millions of people across the globe. The Rwanda war which could be chastened as a holocaust that swept millions into their early graves was as a result of the unprofessional conduct of some unscrupulous media professionals.

As we inch closer to 2016 electioneering period when some political parties would want to exploit the media in order to advance their political fortunes, caution must be taken on how the media report on issues.

As the sages succinctly advice, “as we drive away the hyena, we must also advice the goat.” Inasmuch as we need to weed out quack professionals, the outstanding journalists in this country who have dedicated themselves to trumpet the voice of the vulnerable and have safe-guarded the peace of this country should be well rewarded.

The reward in this sense should encompass issues of remuneration, security, safety and the general wellbeing of practitioners. The recent accident, involving the Presidential Press Corp which resulted in the death of Samuel Nuamah, the Ghanaian Times reporters and left  several other journalists still battling for their lives, has unearthed many startling revelations which underpin how journalists are disrespected even at the heart of government. 

I have over the years witnessed the GJA annual awards that seek to reward journalists for their services to the nation. Mabel Aku Banessah of the Daily Graphic who won the prestigious Ghana Journalists of the Year Award had to wait for close to one whole year before receiving her prize package from the GJA, and guess what, her prize package was only GH¢5,000!

In my opinion, the price package is too small for journalists who have contributed so much for this country. Beauty pageants have been organized in this country where the winners take home brand new cars. So what prevents the journalist whose toil gives publicity to such events also taking a car or its equivalent when he or she wins such an award as the Best Journalist of the Year? When our Black Stars went to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, our players were handed $10,000 as winning bonuses for each player per match. Why is it that journalists can’t be given $10,000 as a prize package for the Best Journalist of the Year Award?

 I believe it is a high time the leadership of this country took journalist as an indispensable force in the development of our dear country and treat them with some dignity and seriousness they deserved. The GJA must streamline the media environment and draw a clear line between who qualifies to be a journalist and who does not. Preferably, just like other profession, journalist should be made to write licensing exams to ensure that only qualified practitioners are recognized as such. This way, media owners will be compelled to hire only the services of only qualified professionals. That way, just as we try to prevent the slip of the doctor’s knife in order to protect a soul, we will control the pen of the journalist in order to prevent preventable national catastrophe.

Writer: Abdul-Karim Mohammed Awaf
Service Personnel: Graphic Communication Group Limited
Accra

African Union Day: Nkrumah- The Flute Players Who's Dancers Could Not Interpret the Rhythms of his Tunes

As I was scribbling something in my dairy, trying to list my schedule for the day, the Joy FM’s news jiggle started playing. This signaled me that it was six o’clock AM already. I strained my ears to listen to what the news had for me. As usual, I was expecting to hear something about the vultures who are eating themselves up within the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and possibly, our struggling economy under the seemingly confused government. But no, I heard more than that! Today was also the African Union Day. All of a sudden, my thoughts were set in motion. Names of our great forbearers resounded in my ears, names including: Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, Julius Nyerere, Haile Salasie, Sekou Toure, Abdul-Nasser and the rest.

But the only one whose name re-echoed in my ears and swept me on my feet was Kwame Nkrumah. A man whose monumental achievement and effort gave birth to the African Union of today, and this bears testimony in his statute which stands magnificently at the edifice of the African Union building in Addis Ababa.

Growing up as little boy, the only name I could hear was Nelson Mandela and in my naïve judgment, I perceived him as the greatest African ever lived. But going through literature, it became apparent to me that even though Nelson Mandela fought hard to end apartheid in South Africa, Kwame Nkrumah lit the flames of the struggle of nationalism. As our sages advice “a person whose corn matures first is the person who started stinginess” and therefore no matter what Mandela did, he could not be compared to Nkrumah.

To our current generation and specifically Ghanaians, when we talk of Nkrumah’s greatness we cite only the physical projects that he left—Tema Harbour, Akosombo Dam, Tema Motorway, KNUST and my own alma mater, the University of Choice, among others.

But Nkrumah greatness lay far, far beyond those projects. This seems to vindicate the great academic, Charles Abugri’s suggestion that “Dead politicians are different things to different people…Their good is usurped, their failures exhumed and magnified as appropriate and in accordance with creed”. Maybe this also explains why as a little boy, Nelson Mandela’s name sounded more important in my ears than Nkrumah.

The achievement of Nkrumah lay deep like the roots of Odum tree, they are firmly stalk deep in the soil and cannot be blown away even by the hurricane or tsunami. His achievements are cast in iron and are well documented.

But our elders say, when we reach the cemetery, it is prudent we remember the heroes of the past. This will help us make a retrospective attempt to understand the origin of the current crisis. Kwame Nkrumah’s legacies include his inspiring effect on the black man, his singular contributions to the liberation of our continent and his hold on the masses stemming from his brand of retail politics.

Having acted the Organizing Secretary of the 1945 Pan-African Congress in Manchester which included other great Pan-Africanists such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Nkrumah's longtime friend, George Padmore, Nkrumah was inspired about the need for Africa to be liberated and be united under one union government. His influence was inspired by the wealth and power of the United States of America(USA) and the now defunct, Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR).

Having suffered racial discrimination during his student days in the USA when the civil right movement was at its peak, Nkrumah developed a non-violent yet a militant approach to the struggle for independence when he returned to Ghana in 1947 upon his invitation by the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC). The UGCC leadership had already stoked the fire for the liberation struggle, but they were reacting with kid gloves.

At a point, Nkrumah had to break away from the UGCC and formed the Conventions People’s Party (CPP) which eventually won independence for Ghana in 1957.

After Ghana’s independence, Accra became the mecca of Pan-Africanism and all the liberation fighters trooped to the shores of Ghana for the “baptism of fire” for the liberation of the continent. Nkrumah forcefully preached the need for Africa to unite urgently to elude neo-colonialists and imperialists from infiltrating within their ranks, but this went unheeded by his compatriots who were still enjoying their new found sovereignty.

As the elders say, “the sore that will kill the dog starts from its head”. Nkrumah’s ideas were consigned into the dustbin, but today, the bones of those leaders who opposed to Nkrumah’s ideas would be gnashing and turning bitterly in their graves with regrets, but the ship has already sank deep in the ocean.

Today, Africans are blaming their leaders. There seems to be leadership crisis on the continent. “Dumsor” is suffocating and roasting Ghanaians and businesses are folding up. Boko haram insurgency continued to terrorize innocent people in Nigeria whilst their outgoing president, Goodluck Jonathan, was busy doling out gold-plated iPhones at his daughter’s wedding. Thousands of Burundians are mourning the murder of the opposition leader, Zedi Feruzi, whilst their president, Pierre Nkurunziza is busy exhibiting his skills in soccer. What a continent!

The continent is the richest in the world yet the poorest in terms of human and infrastructural development. Millions are still dying from common preventable diseases and our resources are being carted away everyday by the imperialists and the neo-colonialists Nkrumah preached about. Was Nkrumah not right in calling for African Unity?

Even though Nkrumah’s critics have always argued that Nkrumah’s personal posture indicated that he was a new form of black imperialist, the true must be told, Nkrumah’s ideas were superb but his contemporaries were too naïve to interpret the rhythm of his tunes.

He introduced one party system, Preventive Detention Act (PDA) and was also accused of assassinating Sylvester Olympio of Togo, as well as masterminding to overthrow other leaders in Africa including the Nnamde Azikiwe and Tafawa Balewa of Nigeria and Félix Houphouët-Boigny of Ivory Coast.

His cynics often say, he should be nailed on the cross because of these reasons, but they forget that the exigencies that raised its ugly head in his attempt to Unify Africa called for a more radical and brutal approach. The west imperialists were working on the backdoor to overthrow Nkrumah for the mere reason that he was a socialist. They were using their puppet governments and some selfish individuals to execute their plans.

Every person has his own flaws. Just like Mandela who was hailed as a hero but today, we are witnessing  xenophobia which I prefer to call “Afrophobia” in South Africa, which many people would want to put the blame on his doorsteps, Nkrumah had his own flaws because of the exigencies of his time.

Today, as we commemorate of African Union’s Day, I see it as the celebration of the funeral of Nkrumah’s abortive ideas. The ideas which continue to ignite lively debates among rational thinkers. Today, Africans would wish they could reverse the hands of time but that seems too late. Nkrumah is indeed a great hero of Africa and his name and Africa Union are siamese twins which cannot be operated on by any surgeon.

Democracy is not the Panacea for Development: My Tribute to Lee Kuan Yew

As I was surfing through the web, I chanced on a news item breaking  the news on the death of Singapore’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew but instead of soaking tears for this man as custom demanded when someone joined the ancestral world, I rather felt proud for this true hero and I could hear myself whispering that “bravo! we are proud of you”.

I suddenly dismissed the renowned academic, Charles Abugre’s suggestion that, “Dead politicians are different things to different people and that, their good is usurped, their failures exhumed and magnified as appropriate and in accordance with creed.” This certainly cannot be the case with Lee Kuan Yew.

The death of Lee Kuan Yew shook the foundation of the world and the media as usual, begun to trumpet what he stood for.  Tributes begun to pour from around the globe, eulogizing this national hero who transformed Singapore from a small port city into a wealthy global hub. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was "deeply saddened" by Mr Lee's death. US President Barack Obama described him as a "giant of history". The Chinese foreign ministry called him "a uniquely influential statesman in Asia".

But the big question is, why would the world celebrate a man whose leadership was criticised for his iron grip on power??  A man who was criticized for his uncompromising stance against democracy and stifled press freedom?

Even after he could not effectively perform his mandate due to old age, he relinquished his position to his son, now Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. And so the multi-million question still remains that what was so special about the legacy of a man whose political ideologies were perceived as the exact opposite of the people who are now singing his praises?

Singapore is one of the world neatest countries and even citizens cannot even chew gum in public yet a showpiece of rapid economic transformation.

Kwame Nkrumah’s Ama Ghana was in the same development plane with the likes of Malaysia and Singapore after independence, but today, Ghana’s has nothing to show except the empty self-fulfilling clique that “Ghana is the gateway to Africa and a beacon of democracy”.

Having organised six successful elections since 1992 and received accolades from the international community, Ghana pride herself in Africa as a beacon of peace and democracy.

Interestingly, democracy has often been tagged as the first crack of the seemingly impregnable wall of industrialization and development, but is democracy really the trick to development?

Ghana’s self-imposed tag as the “gateway to Africa and a democratic cockpit,” to borrow words from Chinua Achebe, is no more than the power of a child over a goat that was said to be his. As long as the goat was alive it could be his; he would find it food and take care of it. But the day it was slaughtered he would know soon enough who the real owner was.

Ghana still wallows in so many myriad of economic challenges including the infamous dumsor which has compelled some people think that Ghana would have been better off if the country was still under colonialism.

I have always had my reservation about this thing called “democracy”. In my opinion, African countries needed selfless long-serving dictators like Lee Kuan Yew in order to accelerate the wheels of development

Libya under Gadhafi witnessed, massive infrastructural development especially his housing policy which ensured that even children who were yet to be born in ten years’ time had housing facilities.

During the 1950’s under the leadership of King Idris, Libya was among the poorest nations in the world with some of the lowest living standards. From the early 1980’s until 2003 Libya were placed under heavy sanctions by the US and UN which had the result of strangling Libya’s growing economy leading to an inevitable smothering of development projects and social welfare schemes.

Despite this the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya headed by Muammar Gaddafi achieved the highest living standard in Africa. Libya also invested heavily in African development initiatives. The funding of infrastructure projects as well as African political and financial institutions was aimed at developing
Africa independently, and combating the economic exploitation of African resources and labour by outside powers.

Gadhafi had transformed a desert-proned country into one of the richest country in Africa where until the ousting of Gadhafi, Libya became the US for many young people in other Africa countries notably, Ghana and Nigeria, who sought to better their lives by seeking greener pastures there.

The number of people who perished their lives on the Sahara desert in their quest to travel to Libya to seek for greener pastures would beat human imagination, yet the west and their cohorts ostensibly found everything wrong with this man on the bases of their so-called human rights and democracy.

The irony however is that this was the same people who perpetuated slave trade in Africa and used dozens of our grandparents as mouthwatering feast to whales and fishes in the Atlantic Ocean, but today, they want to force their so-called democracy and human rights down our throat as the panacea to our woes.

Meanwhile Ama Ghana is malnourished and is inching closer to her graveyard owing to wounds inflicted on her by corrupt officials ranging from the passengers to the bus driver, yet we continue to hammer and take pride in this so-democracy. What is the meaning of democracy to a hungry man?

Ama Ghana is rich in talents, human and natural resources but her children have now formed what is called “Graduate Unemployment Association,” her inflation figures are sky-rocketing, her children are dying from simple preventive disease such as cholera, interest rate is ballooning and to cap it all, her children are now begging for pittance from a so-called IMF.

Listening to the Joy FM’s annual debate on Thursday, March, 26, on the motion “Ghana’s independence had lost its meaning”, Dr. Richard Amoako Baah, who debated for the motion made a profound statement that Ghana needed to change her game if she wanted to win, and to him, Ghana’s independence has lost its meaning.

His co-debater, Prof. Agyemang Badu Akorsah, however, insisted that the likes of Singapore and Malaysia had developed because the west allowed them to use their brains since they had no natural resources.

But my interest in the debate stemmed from a statement by Dr. Amoako Baah that people by nature are bad, and therefore strict policing must be put in place to check behaviors.

This statement, in my view, is an area Ghana and Africa leaders have failed. African leaders themselves are corrupt and therefore they pay lip-services in the fight against corruption. They form create, loot and share governments and therefore they have lax their effort in the fight against corruption.

The symptoms of this beast called “corruption” is staring us on the face in all facets of our national lives but what do we see? Several people were indicted for various corrupt practices ranging from the Wayome unlawful judgment debt payment, the GYEEDA scandal and the rest, but interestingly,the institutions that are supposed to punish these people are reacting with “kid blows”.

According to the Forbes.com, the family fortune of Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was $70 billion. In the same vein, the net worth of General Ibrahim Babangida, a former military dictator of Nigeria, was $12 billion whilst that of Omar al-Bashir of Sudan was $9 billion.

Accordingly, it also computes that the personal fortune of General Sani Abacha, former military dictator of Nigeria, was $5 billion, whilst the net worth of Charles Taylor of Liberia was $5 billion.
The personal fortune of Mobutu Sese Seko of Congo, Forbes says, was $5 billion.

The personal fortune of Daniel Arap Moi of Kenya, according to forbes.com, was $3 billion whilst the net worth of Isabel dos Santos, daughter of Angola’s President, stood at $3.1 billion

Meanwhile, Forbes.com further revealed that, for a perspective, the total or combined net worth of all 43 US presidents-from Washington to Obama- was only $2.7 billion. (See http://theatln.tc/1uZ8wMD)

Ghana and by extension Africa still commanded enormous wealth, talents and human resources but corruption is impoverishing the continent and therefore it is a high time Africans stopped blaming colonial imperialists for their backwardness.

The hard truth however is that, the west is as guilty of corrupt practices as the African leaders because the west have provided safe haven where African leaders comfortably save their booties from their corrupt deals. The only difference between corrupt leaders in the west and that of Africa is that when a politician in the West engaged in corrupt practices, the “booty” was invested in the same country and therefore the money stayed in the country but the contrary could be said of the African corrupt leader.

To put it mildly, Africa leaders have failed because they have refused to play the kpa kpa kpa game.

Writer: Abdul-Karim Mohammed Awaf
Communication Studies
University of Cape Coast.

Poultry farmers want subsidies on feed

The Vice-President of the Ghana National Association of Poultry Farmers, Mr Tony Mensah, has appealed to the government to subsidise the cost of poultry feed in order to help farmers increase the production of birds in the country to meet the growing local demand.

He also noted that such a move would empower local poultry farmers to be able to produce sufficient birds to compete effectively with imported poultry on pricing.

 “Almost 70 per cent of production cost is on feed and this is where we want the government to come in.  Now there is no subsidy on poultry as it was in the 1980s,” Mr Mensah told the Daily Graphic in an interview last Wednesday.

“Soya, maize and fish meal are the main ingredients of poultry feed but these are very expensive and that is where the challenge is,” he added.
Need for capacity building

While commending the government for being proactive in its efforts to resuscitate the industry by bringing on board the ‘Ghana Broiler Revitalisation Project (GHABROP),’ Mr Mensah said there was also the need to rebuild the capacities of poultry farmers in the country to be abreast of modern ways of farming to increase productivity.

 “You can have good feed; you can have good birds yet management will be a problem, so the government can also help in developing the capacity of poultry farmers to be able to manage production,” he appealed.

On earlier requests for the government to consider compelling hotels to use only locally-grown chicken in their operations, Mr Mensah said the government must first improve the production capacity of local farmers to be able to meet local demand before such a policy could be implemented.
Poultry advisory council

Mr Mensah also called on the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) to expedite action on the setting up of the poultry advisory council.

 “The council is expected to oversee the operations of the industry and a document on its establishment was currently with Cabinet for approval,” Mr Mensah said.

The document when approved by Cabinet, he said, would oversee the welfare of the local poultry industry and also help build the capacity of players.

On the impact of recent investments in the poultry industry, Mr Mensah said Ghanaians should expect increased output this year to meet a greater part of demand.

He, however, urged all Ghanaians to repose confidence in the local poultry industry and opt for local chicken as against  imported ones.

Ghana’s competitiveness

There is currently a debate as to whether or not the country has the competitive advantage to do poultry on a large scale to meet local demand and for export.

The Managing Director of the Ghana Netherlands Chamber of Commerce (GHANECC), Mr Nico Van Staalduinen, who stirred the controversy when he suggested to the government not to concentrate on poultry production because Ghana lacked the competitive advantage in the sector, has come under intense fire from all walks of life.

According to him, the conditions in Ghana did not favour poultry production and urged the government to focus on areas such as rice production, among other things, where it had the competitive advantage.

Making a contribution during the Graphic Business/Fidelity Bank Breakfast Meeting in Accra, he categorically called on the government to stop investing in the production of poultry, and explained that the high temperatures in the country, high cost of poultry feed and frequent outbreak of bird flu made it uncompetitive for the country to undertake commercial rearing of the birds.

But his assertion has been vehemently opposed by various people, including players in the local poultry industry.

They cited the early 80s and 90s when Ghana had many poultry farmers who produced on a large scale to meet local demand and for exports as an example that could be repeated provided the government provided a better playing field for the farmers in the business

- See more at: http://graphic.com.gh/business/business-news/28021-poultry-farmers-want-subsidies-on-feed.html#sthash.R1Y0WFfp.dpuf

Don’t Produce Poultry in Ghana — CEO of Netherlands Chamber tirs Debate

The Managing Director of the Ghana-Netherlands Chamber of Commerce (GHANECC), Mr Nico Van Staalduinen, last week stirred controversy when he suggested to the government not to concentrate on poultry production because Ghana lacked the competitive advantage in sector.

According to him, the conditions in Ghana do not favour poultry production and urged the government to focus on areas such as rice production, among other things, where it had the competitive advantage.

Making a contribution during the GRAPHIC BUSINESS/FIDELITY BANK Breakfast Meeting in Accra on June 15, he categorically called on the government to stop investing in the production of poultry, and explained that the high temperatures in the country, high cost of poultry feed and frequent outbreak of bird flu made it uncompetitive for the country to undertake commercial rearing of the birds.

But his assertion was vehemently opposed by a renowned film producer, Mr Kow Ansah, who wondered whether Mr Staalduinen had conducted any studies to arrive at his conclusion.

He cited the early 80s and 90s when Ghana had many poultry farmers who produced on a large scale to meet local demand for exports.

“We have done it before and we can still do it; We do not need you to come tell us what we are competitive in or not; the examples of Darko Farms and Afariwa farms are there to show”, he argued fiercely to an extent that the moderator for the function had to step in to calm tempers.

His call comes at a time when the government is preparing a GHC50 million package to revive the ailing poultry industry.

The funding is expected to resuscitate dying companies, start new businesses,as well as set up small scale processing plants to process the birds for the local market.

The venture is expected to help reduce the country’s over-dependence on imported poultry, which is currently costing government some US$350 million annually.
The outgoing Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, had met with the members of the poultry association to assure them of the government’s support to restore the fortunes of the poultry sector.

Giants in the industry such as Afariwa Farms and Darko Farms, which combined with many others, supplied to meet local demand and for exports, have both collapsed, leaving a few in operation.
Arguing further in favour of his position in an interview with the GRAPHIC BUSINESS, Mr Staalduinen insisted that instead of channelling money into a venture that might yield no results, he said the country was better off using that money to support sectors that it had competitive advantage.

“Technically, Ghana can produce chicken but Ghana can ever hardly be competitive in the growth of chicken because the varieties of chickens that are preferred at the global market today are not favourable in Ghana because of the weather. Unless Ghana considers starting from the scratch to develop a good variety of chicken that will do well in Ghana, it will be uncompetitive to engage in commercial poultry production” he explained.

While admitting that government’s efforts at reviving the poultry industry was also supported by the Netherlands government, the CEO of the GHANECC said it did not take out the fact that Ghana’s present circumstances made it uncompetitive in the commercial poultry business.

Mr Staalduinen held the view that chickens that were reared in temperatures above 28 Degree Celsius got drenched quickly because of the high temperature.

That, he said, meant that places such as Europe, where temperatures are milder, if five or 10 day old chickens would die in a day, 60 or 100 day old chickens would die in Ghana in a day because of the high temperature.

Having worked in the poultry industry in Netherlands before coming to Ghana, Mr Staalduinen explained that “a chicken that takes 40 days in Europe to gain slaughter weight will take not less than 60 days in Ghana to gain weight because chickens in Ghana drink a lot of water.”

Feeding challenges

He said Ghana was not able to produce enough maize for human consumption and would, therefore, be forced to import some to feed poultry should it go into commercial production.
This argument is on the back of the fact that Ghana is still not self-sufficient in maize production and has to rely on imports to make up for local demand.

Using his own country as an example, Mr Staalduinen said Netherlands could not compete favourably with Ghana in cassava production because his country did not have the right temperature needed for cassava to thrive and hence the need for Ghana to take advantage of its location and rather invest in cassava, tilapia, oil palm, maize and other areas where it had competitive advantage.

He pointed out that the Ghana poultry industry did well in the past because it was difficult to export poultry to Ghana because of factors such as high duty chargers but the situation was not the same at the moment and, therefore, Ghana should look carefully for its strong points where it had the advantage.

Poultry Association reacts

The Ghana National Association of Poultry Farmers has disagreed with suggestions that the country is not competitive in poultry production, hence the need for government to channel its resources in other sectors.

According to the association, the local poultry industry was producing its 40 per cent production quota currently, and with more government interventions, it could up its capacity.
Poultry association reacts

In a related development, the Chairman of the Poultry Farmers Association of Ghana, Mr Kwadwo Asante, has described the suggestions made by the Managing Director of the Ghana Netherlands Chamber of Commerce (GHANECC), Mr Staalduinen, as baseless.

He told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS on July 18 that “The government intervention is creating more market for us. Since government does not want to ban poultry importation outright, gradually we are going to take up full production quota at 100 per cent,” he explained.

According to him, birds being raised from the Akati and Darko Farms were surviving in the same conditions that Mr Van Staalduinen cited as unconducive for the country and subsequently belaboured the assertion that Ghana would be uncompetitive in poultry production.

Daily Graphic, July, 22, 2014