'Rice importers sabotaging Mahama'

The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Free Zones Board, Kojo Twum-Boafo, says he has evidence that some rice importers in the country are sabotaging government’s efforts at making Ghana food-sufficient.

He suspects the rice importers have connived to import to the Ghanaian market high priced rice with the intention of making the Mahama-led administration unpopular.

Ghana currently spends about US$600 million annually to import rice.

President John Mahama in February this year said government is aiming at shoring up Ghana’s rice production capacity and eventually becoming a net-exporter rather than an importer.

As part of long-term measures to achieve the objective, the President told the BBC that his government is targeting a reduction in the US$1b imports of food by developing the local capacity to produce more of them.

However, Twum-Boafo believes the government could achieve more if all the rice importers in the country supported the vision of the president.

“Some of the rice importers are sabotaging the president. They secretly import more and blame the Mahama administration for high market prices for the staple. It's deliberate they want to sabotage the government, I know them but I won’t mention their names,” he said on Radio Gold on Saturday.