Government importing Chinese mackerel to feed Free SHS students – Report

Education Economist and Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare has revealed that the government’s decision to import mackerel from China for the consumption of Senior High School (SHS) students has negatively impacted the poultry industry which hitherto supplied eggs to these Senior High Schools(SHSs).

According to Mr. Asare, poultry farmers had seen a boom in their business since the inception of the Free SHS policy by the Akufo-Addo administration until the government engaged the services of a company to import and supply Chinese mackerel to all SHSs.

This development, he noted, has cut the consumption of eggs in these schools by 70% forcing farmers, in the midst, of the COVID-19 pandemic, to scale down their production and lay off workers.

Meanwhile, the company, Lamens Ventures has been supplying the Chinese mackerel since January 2021.

Read Mr. Asare’s post:

“We have been investigating why many Senior High Schools are not buying eggs like previously. We’ve spoken to large-scale egg producers in Kumasi, Ejura, Kwabre & SHS heads.

According to them, before COVID-19, schools were doing at least 3 eggs a week. This translated into 150,000 crates/week (about 3.6 million pieces of eggs).

So Poultry Farmers invested in more layers to sustain the demand from SHS, while it created jobs and income for many. Thank you Nana Addo for creating jobs via free SHS.

Then in January this year, an order came from Accra that a certain company (Lamens Ventures), has been contracted by the government (don’t forget the free SHS budget was held at the Presidency), to supply imported Chinese mackerel to all SHS in Ghana.

Since this company started supplying the China Mackerel, many schools started doing one egg a week.

This reduced the demand for eggs by 70% and coupled with supply chain disruptions of COVID-19, forced many poultry farmers who had invested in Layers for school supplies to shut down and laying off labour. The increase in the price of maize only nailed the coffin.

Dear Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, you are now creating unemployment after creating jobs.”