{"id":6245,"date":"2019-11-11T13:32:35","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T13:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/ghana\/?p=6245"},"modified":"2019-11-11T13:32:35","modified_gmt":"2019-11-11T13:32:35","slug":"ghana-now-imports-flowers-from-sa-osafo-maafo-laments-high-importation-rate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/all-news\/ghana-now-imports-flowers-from-sa-osafo-maafo-laments-high-importation-rate","title":{"rendered":"Ghana now imports flowers from SA \u2013 Osafo Maafo laments high importation rate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yaw Osafo Maafo, Senior Minister<\/strong><\/p>\n

Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo, has raised concerns about the high levels of importation of goods into the country.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2018, a total of USD1.35 billion was spent on the importation of rice into Ghana.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Currently, flowers are being imported into the country thrice a week, a situation the Senior Minister described as absurd and unacceptable.<\/p>\n

Addressing a gathering on behalf of President Nana Akufo-Addo at the opening of the National Festival of Arts and Culture in Koforidua, Mr. Osafo Maafo called on Ghanaians to support government to end the trend.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was the Minister of Finance, Ghana spent USD300 million on rice and we were complaining, the late Major Courage Quashigah was the Minister of Agriculture and he promised to reduce it to zero after 4 years but it was never achieved. Indeed, after 4 years, our rice import bill went from USD300 million to USD700 million\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year, 2018, Ghana spent USD1.35 billion on the importation of rice, can you imagine\u2013 with the type of land we have, even in the forest areas the lowlands can grow rice to feed ourselves. As you go up to the north and fly over to Tamale you will see greenery flatlands that can produce rice for West Africa and we spent USD1.35 billion of our scarce foreign exchange resources to import rice\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have not added the importation of chicken and even fruits and flowers, Ghana is now airlifting flowers from South Africa to Kotoka about 3 times a week. Is it right, can we continue this way? Certainly not, because we have all the gifts of riches and we need the leadership that will take us from this dependency that, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is providing and we should have all hands on deck to go on the Ghana Beyond Aid mindset\u201d.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s feed ourselves<\/p>\n

The Senior Minister urged Ghanaians to help move the Ghanaian economy from an import-dependent one to export-driven.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet us at least feed ourselves, let\u2019s export enough, earn enough to put our roads right. Everybody is complaining about bad roads network and it is a fact but how do you repair your roads, should we be going out asking for loans to do all our roads or we should be earning revenue from our resources to repair our roads\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second is the alternative, we must out of our own resources earn enough to put our roads right, fix our road network, to create employment for ourselves and even our culture when properly mounted we can earn enough to fix our roads,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Cedi weakened by high importation of poultry products \u2013 UDS Professor<\/p>\n

Ghanaians continue to raise concerns about the depreciation of the Ghanaian Cedi against the US Dollar.<\/p>\n

The Director of Quality Assurance at the University for Development Studies (UDS), Professor Herbert Kwabla Dei in 2018 explained that the high importation of poultry products could account for the depreciation of the Cedi against the US Dollar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe high importation of poultry from the USA and Europe is partly responsible for the weakening of the Ghanaian currency. The excessive importation of poultry and poultry products from the two strongest economies of the world is not too good for a developing economy such as Ghana which equally has the potential to produce in high quantity if giving the necessary governmental support,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Prof. Professor Herbert Kwabla Dei raised the concern when he delivered a paper on the topic, \u201cThe food and poultry sustainability question: the role of nutrition research.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our imports not a nuisance; we can\u2019t do without importation \u2013 GUTA<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Ghana Union of Traders Associations (GUTA) had said Ghana cannot do without importation.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the contrary, most of us want to migrate into manufacturing,\u201d GUTA\u2019s President, Joseph Obeng, said on the Citi Breakfast Show in April 2019.<\/p>\n

Mr. Obeng explained further that importers only seek to supplement what is produced in Ghana.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the shortfall of what we do not produce here, that is what we seek [to import] from outside to supplement what is being made here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The GUTA President added that \u201cmost of the people who are doing manufacturing now migrated from trading.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want us to create the impression that we are just being the nuisance people and bring the goods. We are in a global world and we cannot do away with importation. Even the American and European countries do importations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yaw Osafo Maafo, Senior Minister Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo, has raised concerns about the high levels of importation of goods into the country. In 2018, a total of USD1.35 billion was spent on the importation of rice into Ghana.\u00a0 Currently, flowers are being imported into the country thrice a week, a situation the Senior […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":6246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,7,8],"tags":[4138,4137,3251],"class_list":["post-6245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","category-head-lines","category-homepage-english","tag-ghana-now-imports-flowers-from-sa","tag-senior-minister","tag-yaw-osafo-maafo"],"yoast_head":"\nGhana now imports flowers from SA \u2013 Osafo Maafo laments high importation rate - Ghana<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yaw Osafo Maafo, Senior MinisterSenior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo, has raised concerns about the high levels of importation of goods into the country.In 2018, a total of USD1.35 billion was spent on the importation of rice into Ghana.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/all-news\/ghana-now-imports-flowers-from-sa-osafo-maafo-laments-high-importation-rate\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ghana now imports flowers from SA \u2013 Osafo Maafo laments high importation rate\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yaw Osafo Maafo, Senior MinisterSenior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo, has raised concerns about the high levels of importation of goods into the country.In 2018, a total of USD1.35 billion was spent on the importation of rice into Ghana.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/all-news\/ghana-now-imports-flowers-from-sa-osafo-maafo-laments-high-importation-rate\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Ghana\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-11-11T13:32:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/ghana\/2019\/11\/51129276.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"393\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"francis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"francis\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/all-news\/ghana-now-imports-flowers-from-sa-osafo-maafo-laments-high-importation-rate#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/all-news\/ghana-now-imports-flowers-from-sa-osafo-maafo-laments-high-importation-rate\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"francis\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/#\/schema\/person\/3687592f7713dc6c826cf5bbd0e55bca\"},\"headline\":\"Ghana now imports flowers from SA \u2013 Osafo Maafo laments high importation rate\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-11-11T13:32:35+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/all-news\/ghana-now-imports-flowers-from-sa-osafo-maafo-laments-high-importation-rate\"},\"wordCount\":750,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/all-news\/ghana-now-imports-flowers-from-sa-osafo-maafo-laments-high-importation-rate#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/ghana\/2019\/11\/51129276.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Ghana now imports flowers from SA\",\"Senior Minister\",\"Yaw Osafo Maafo\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Economy\",\"head lines\",\"homepage-english\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/all-news\/ghana-now-imports-flowers-from-sa-osafo-maafo-laments-high-importation-rate#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/all-news\/ghana-now-imports-flowers-from-sa-osafo-maafo-laments-high-importation-rate\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/ghana\/all-news\/ghana-now-imports-flowers-from-sa-osafo-maafo-laments-high-importation-rate\",\"name\":\"Ghana now imports flowers from SA \u2013 Osafo Maafo laments high importation rate - 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