Takoradi (Western Region) -- The Western Region Minister, Hon Joseph Boahen Aidoo, has warned district chief executives (DECs) in the region that he will not hesitate in asking the security agencies to arrest them if they fail to collect back the poverty alleviation fund they have disbursed in their respective districts.
He said since the money is not a gift but a loan that must be paid back by those who have collected for others to also enjoy, it is incumbent upon every DCE to ensure that all that he has disbursed from the fund is paid back into the chest.
Speaking at the People’s Assembly at the various towns and villages in the region last week, Aidoo also called on the sympathisers of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) who have gone for the loan to endeavour to pay it back for their colleagues who did not get it to also enjoy.
He warned that the poverty fund is not meant for NPP supporters only, but for the whole community therefore if any party sympathiser thinks it is a party money and would not pay it back, that person may be dreaming.
The regional minister was compelled to give the warning after some of the communities he and his team had visited complained to him that the poverty alleviation fund is being disbursed on party lines and that if one does not belong to a particular party he would not benefit from the scheme.
Two main issues that came up during the minister’s interaction with the people, apart from the poverty alleviation fund, were the mass spraying of cocoa farms by the government and the increase in the fuel prices which some of the people thought, were being dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
At Juabeso in the Juabeso-Bia district, for instance, the people, who are mainly cocoa farmers, told the minister and his team which included the deputy minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Matthew Antwi, that it would rather be better if the government heavily subsidised the insecticide use in spraying the cocoa farms and then made them available on the market for the farmers to go and buy it themselves to spray their farms.
According to them, the free mass spraying of their farms by the government is not helping them because they are not supplied with the required number of the insecticide to spray the farms. Whiles some claimed they are usually supplied with just tow or three tins, others also claimed they are supplied with four tins which to them is woefully inadequate to spray their entire farms.
The farmers further told the minister that though the government decision to freely spray their farms is laudable, her inability to make the required insecticide available to them to enable them spray their entire farms to improve upon cocoa production in the country is defeating the laudable idea.
Reacting to the concerns expressed the farmers, Hon Aidoo thanked them for expressing their views and promised to channel their grievances to the appropriate quarters for a redress. Minister Aidoo, however, told the farmers that the government would continue with the free mass spraying of their cocoa farms.
He said if the government should make the insecticide available on the market, as they are demanding, those who have got the money would buy it in bulk to create an artificial shortage on the market. They would then sell the heavily subsidised product at exorbitant prices.
Meanwhile, the government has set aside ?242bn for the free mass spraying of cocoa farms this year. The programme, according to deputy minister Dr Antwi, will start in June this year.
