In case you haven’t heard a story today of how Ghanaians are being taken for a ride by the government, brace yourself to hear one now.
The issues in Ghana could be solved if our politicians had our priorities straight, but they never do and are only interested in enriching their pockets.
Case in point a $600m loan facility government has secured from the African Development Bank (AfDB), allegedly meant to be used as a cash injection to boost cocoa production in Ghana.
Ghana is the 2nd largest producer of cocoa in the world but are taking a loan to boost production.
That’s not even the worse part – if you hear how much money has been earmarked for different parts of the project you immediately smell something fishy going on.
Apparently, government is planning to use $5m of the loan to buy chocolates for students under the school feeding program and also for soldiers and prisoners.
$2.5m of the money is also earmarked for awareness creation – meant to encourage Ghanaians to buy cocoa products. Tell me that’s not just going to enter somebody’s pocket.
“The government wants to buy the chocolates for students with funds meant to increase cocoa production. What sense does this make?” former Brong Ahafo Regional Minister and NDC MP Asunafo South, Eric Opoku complained.
As for the rest of the money – $140m dollars would be used to eradicate the swollen shoot disease, $82.7m would go into the planting of new cocoa trees, $68m will be channelled to hand pollination and pruning practices, $50m for warehousing and building the cocoa farmer electronic database, and $200m into processing and value addition.
Source: GhanaCelebrities.Com