Government pays 85% of debt owed food suppliers - NAFCo

Mr. Hanan Abdul-Wahab, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Food Buffer Stock Company, says the government has paid 85 percent of the arrears owed to food suppliers.

He said the government released GHc100 million on July 17 and also released an additional GH¢80 million this month (August) for payment.

Therefore, it is left with less than GH¢30 million of the arrears, which will be cleared by the end of August 2023. Mr. Abdul-Wahab made the disclosure at the Minister’s news briefing in Accra on Monday.

The National Food Buffer Stock Company (NAFCo) received GH¢2.7 billion from the government between 2017 and 2022, which was used to pay business transactions NAFCo entered into with licensed food suppliers, he said.

The CEO of NAFCo gave the assurance that the Company would perform its mandate of ensuring there were sufficient food items for 700 boarding senior high schools to ensure 1.2 million students under the Free SHS Policy were fed adequately.

Some food suppliers last month picketed at the premises of NAFCo in Accra, demanding payment of GH¢275 million in arrears owed them by the Government for food items supplied to schools.

The picketing created a media frenzy, leading the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr. Bryan Acheampong to visit them.

Some members of the Minority Caucus in Parliament also visited the picketers at the premises of NAFCo to ascertain the cause of the delay in paying their arrears.

The move by the Minority Caucus did not go down well with some government officials, sparking a verbal confrontation between the sector minister and some NDC MPs who were at the premises of NAFCo.

In his earlier presentation, the CEO of NAFCo highlighted various policy interventions and programmes the Company had been implementing over the past six years to prevent post-harvest losses as well as ensure fair prices for food items purchased from food suppliers.

Some of the programmes included 1 District, 1 Warehouse, intended to construct 80 of 1000 metric tonnes (MT) capacity warehouses in each district,

Mr. Abdul-Wahab said Sixty (60) of those warehouses had been completed under the first phase of the project.

He also mentioned the rehabilitation of other warehouses across the country, such as the 5,000 MT capacity warehouse in Duase, the 2,500 MT warehouse capacity in Sunyani, the 1,300 MT warehouse in Wenchi, and the 2,500 MT at Yendi.

Mr. Abdul-Wahab stated NAFCo was the only institution mandated by the government to supply 18 different food items to the 700 boarding senior high schools.

The food items include maize, beans, peanuts, millet, soy beans, and rice, as well as locally processed food items like gari, edible palm oil, Tom Brown, tin tomatoes, and processed cocoa powder.

He expressed NAFCo’s commitment to contribute its quota to the development of the agricultural business value chain from harvesting, transportation, processing, storage, and distribution.

He said NAFCo would continue to explore opportunities in the agricultural value chain to ensure the benefits of establishing it were fully realized.