Hannah Bissiw denies misappropriating bird flu funds

National Women’s Organiser for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and former Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture in the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr. Hannah Louisa Bissiw, has denied misappropriating funds allocated to compensate farmers whose birds were affected by the outbreak of Bird Flu in 2015.

This comes after Excellent Ghana, a civil society group, accused the National Women’s Organiser for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and former Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr. Hannah Louisa Bissiw of misusing and channeling funds meant to compensate farmers whose birds were affected by the outbreak of Bird Flu in 2015 into other projects.

The group added that although the erstwhile NDC government adopted tough measures to contain the bird flu outbreak, it is shocked at the revelation by Mr. Victor Oppong, President of the Ghana Poultry Farmers Association that, majority of their members whose birds/farms were destroyed due to the Bird Flu outbreak are yet to be compensated five solid years after their livelihoods were destroyed.

Responding to the accusations on Atinka News Friday 11th September 2020, former Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture in the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr. Hannah Louisa Bissiw, noted that if the group had done due diligence, it would have known that monies are not paid directly to ministers or their deputies.

According to Hannah Bissiw, the Bird Flu pandemic was not a one-time disaster and so the then government sought to find a lasting solution to the menace.

“I would forgive whoever made the accusation because its obvious he or she does not have in-depth knowledge on how government functions and has been tasked to speak against my work. He should listen and learn. We requested for 22 pick-ups , station wagons, PPE’s, as well as compensation packages which were given to the affected farmers at that time. Reagents and others were also requested to be distributed to high risk town to assist the farmers as part of government’s efforts to fight the menace and so no money was given to Hannah Bissiw”, she noted.