The Ghana Poultry Farmers Association (GNAPF) says none of its members has received grants from the Export Development and Agricultural Investment Fund (EDAIF) to revamp their farms.
Subsequently, the association has challenged EDAIF to publish the names of beneficiaries of the GH¢7.7 million it claims to have disbursed to the poultry farmers in the country as grants.
“If they claim they have really given GH¢ 7.7 million to the poultry farmers in the country, they should name those who have benefitted from the grant,” the Chairman of the association, Mr Kwadwo Asante, said in an interview with the GRAPHIC BUSINESS on March 20.
Governments promise
The government, in 2013, indicated that it had initiated an intervention to revamp the poultry sector. Mr Haruna Iddrisu, the then Minister of Trade and Industry, who signed the correspondence to GNAPF, said by the last quarter of 2014, there would be a stimulus support for the production of poultry to facilitate the economic development of the country. The cost was estimated at GH¢39.54 million.
The proposed project targeted the production of five million broiler birds annually, with 15,000 broiler birds being processed daily at two existing processing plants in the Ashanti Region, namely, Darko Farms Company Ltd and Yamoah Company Ltd, and a third plant to be established in the Greater Accra Region on the premises of JFamco Ltd.
The proposal was subsequently confirmed in the 2014 Budget and found its way into the President’s 2014 State of the Nation Address.
Reaction
However, when GRAPHIC BUSINESS contacted EDAIF, its Director of Corporate Planning and Communication, Dr Henry Shiraz Alhassan, said the fund had disbursed GH¢7.7 million to poultry farmers to revamp their business, a claim the poultry farmer association has contested.
Dr Alhassan said the Poultry Farmers Association had not applied for the fund.
However, documents sighted by the GRAPHIC BUSINESS indicated that an application from the Poultry Farmers Association, signed by the Director of Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), Mr Kwamina Arkorful, had been sent to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of EDAIF, Dr Barfour Osei, in August 2014.
This was followed by a letter signed by the Deputy Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr Hanna Louisa Bisiw, on September 9, 2014, which stated the modalities for which the fund for the project would be disbursed.
Dr Alhassan, however, insisted that his outfit had not received any application from GNAPF.
He said a GH¢7.7 million grant was disbursed to individual farmers last year by EDAIF but refused to disclose the poultry farmers who received the grant or the number, stating that it was confidential and there was no way he would share that information.
Petition
Following its inability to access the funds, the Poultry Farmers Association has dragged EDAIF to the Council of State over what it described as the inability of the Fund to honour a GH¢39 million financial support promised the sector by the government.
GNAPF contended that EDAIF, which had been directed by Cabinet to provide funds for the broiler revitalisation project, had not heeded to the directive, eight months after it was issued.
The poultry farmers have, therefore, petitioned the Council of State to exercise its constitutional mandate by compelling EDAIF to honour the promise.
Background
The project funding of GH¢39.54 million was requested to be released for the immediate implementation of phase one of the project in 2014, of which GH¢21.34 million would be utilised as project credit for the establishment of a poultry processing plant in Greater Accra Region at the premises of JFamco under collaborative arrangement with GNAPF.
An amount of GH¢14.77 million was also to be utilised to support broiler production to feed the two existing processing plants in the Ashanti Region.
The remaining GH¢3.43 million was grant for project management and out-grower apprenticeship activities.