Let’s discuss national policy issues devoid of politics – Deputy Agric Minister

A Deputy Minister of Agriculture has admonished that national policy issues must be discussed devoid of politics since that is one of the surest ways of developing the country.

“We will only develop and move forward as a nation if we start to discuss national policies devoid of politics and slander,” Kennedy Osei Nyarko said.

“We must start to think of the national interest and not what will benefit our political agenda. There must be the nation first agenda,” added the Member of Parliament for Akim Swedru Constituency.

He was speaking on Onua FM’s Yen Nsempa on Monday.

It comes on the back of his boss’s announcement that the flagship Agric programme of government, Planting for Food and Jobs, in its first year alone, created 745,000 jobs.

Agriculture Minister Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto explained that the jobs were created in the areas of input supply and distribution of surplus food resulting from the programme.

But Member of Parliament for the Keta Constituency, Richard Quarshigah, has challenged the claims, asking the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to provide evidence to the claims.

The General Agricultural Workers’ Union (GAWU) has also disagreed with the figure, saying government’s estimate of 745,000 jobs provided under the might be exaggerated.

GAWU General Secretary Edward Kareweh said he could not “vouch for those figures”.

But Deputy Agric Minister Osei Nyarko insisted that the figure given by his boss was right, adding that government is doing more in the Agric sector to ensure that more jobs are created to fight the youth unemployment in the country.

While saying the figures can be easily cross-checked, he also decried the situation where people criticize just to score political points.

He maintained that while he is not against “constructive” criticism, he wishes such criticism should be done in the interest of the country.

“It doesn’t matter which government introduces the policy.

“For the sake of development, we must support it. It is Ghanaians and Ghana that will benefit in the long run so let us take out our political lenses and think of the bigger picture.

“Let us have the nation at heart always because it is our country and nobody will develop it for us.”