Quashigah urges development partners to reduce tariffs

Accra, July 24, GNA - The Ministry of Food and Agriculture on Thursday called for a substantial reduction of tariff peaks and tariff escalation by development partners, if the country is to take their advice against subsidies.

Major Courage Quashigah, in a speech read for him at the opening of an assessment of the Contribution of Internal Trade Policy to Poverty Reduction in Ghana, said it is only reasonable for Ghana's development partners to desist from paying huge subsidies to their farmers. He also called for measures to assist small-scale exporters to benefit from tariff rate quota in major markets.

".....If our partners are actually interested in helping us reduce poverty, there should be no limit to what one country can send into the market.

"Players should simply compete to gain buyers. After all the World Trade Organization is about fairness,'' he said.

The Social Enterprise Development Foundation (SEND) of West Africa organized the workshop on research conducted on how trade policies contribute to poverty reduction of farmers of cassava, maize, soya bean and pepper.

Areas covered are the three agro-ecological zones. There were two communities each in the northern middle and coastal belts and it focused on products that are predominantly cultivated, marketed and consumed by poor people.

Major Quashigah called for an improvement in the road network to make the domestic market trade tick. He also asked the private sector to play a major role in investment in food distribution facilities. "Accordingly, I urge the private sector to consider acquiring the divested assets of the Ghana Food Distribution Corporation for the purpose of storage and distribution of foodstuffs."

Major Quashigah also called for the standardization in trade practices, saying," the use of standard weights and measures must be encouraged ... and my ministry would collaborate with the Ghana Standards Board to find a solution to the low patronage of weighing scales in food trade in our markets."

Mr Siapha Kamara, CEO of SEND, said the purpose of the workshop was to develop an alternative bottom-up and flexible approach to the making of trade policy and assess how trade could help reduce poverty in the country.

He noted that currently, 150 million cedis worth of soya bean produced by more than 200 farm households is yet to find a buyer even though SEND and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture encouraged the soya bean initiative.

"One buyer after the other has said to us that imported and cheaper soya bean has taken over the market. This imported soya bean is from our so-called development partners where they subsidise soya bean farmers whose governments tell us that subsidy is not good for our farmers."

He explained that the result of this is that the various development processes such as formation of a farmers' co-operative, credit unions and income generation are seriously threatened.