Suspected NDC thugs attack fertilizer warehouse …pummel director

Credible information reaching The Chronicle indicates that some members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Lower Manya Krobo District Assembly on Monday attacked staff of the department of agriculture in the area.

According to sources, the NDC members stormed the Akutunya and New Somanya warehouse, claiming that with the change in Government, they now have power and started looting urea fertilizer from the warehouse.

The paper gathered that about 50 bags of urea fertilizers at the Akutunya warehouse were looted by people claiming to be NDC supporters, clad in party T-shirts, and further subjected the Municipal director, Mr. Godswill Glante, to severe beatings because he tried to record them with his mobile phone.

The angry NDC followers, who could not understand why the Municipal director was recording them with his phone, subjected him to severe beatings. They seized the phone, deleted the videos and damaged the screen.

According to the NDC supporters, they had got information that certain individuals were stealing supplies meant for our farmers.

They indicated that these individuals use unlicensed vehicles, posing as distributors but instead were diverting the fertilizers to private homes and stores.

Speaking to this paper, Mr. Godswill Glante confirmed the incident, adding that “I am already physically challenged and they have worsened my situation, as I sustained various degrees of injuries on my face, hand and other parts of my body.”

He disclosed that the case has been reported to the Kpong police station, where a medical form was issued to him to access medical care at the St. Martin De Porres Hospital, at Agomenya, also in the municipality.

Giving an overview of the incident, Mr. Godswill Glante indicated that he and his Extension officers went to the warehouse on Monday to continue the distribution of fertilizers under the Ghana Agriculture and Agribusiness Platform (GhAAP).

According to him, the GhAAP is an integrated and interoperable web-based platform that provides agribusiness value chain actors with information, insights, inputs, agronomic practices, markets and other resources to enhance coordination, transparency, interaction, tracking, monitoring and reporting in real-time.

He continued that the department has been registering farmers on GHAAP platform since the beginning of the year and it is ongoing with a minimum requirement of Ghana card and recently Voters IDs

Mr. Glante mentioned that beneficiary farmers are those captured on the GHAAP APP as released by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to the Districts.

According to him, the New Somanya Warehouse is a central warehouse where Districts like Okere, Akwuapim North, Upper Manya Krobo, Lower Manya Krobo, Yilo Krobo and Asougyman all collect their allocations.

The municipal office of the department of agriculture described the stealing allegation made against his outfit as unfortunate and calculated to bring mistrust between the farmers and the staff of the Department.

The Department of Agriculture is a non-partisan state institution and he cannot look on for such things to occur and assured its commitment to continue to support farmers to achieve food security.

He disclosed that the vehicles without registration numbers were the DRIP vehicles (Tipper trucks) that are from adjoining Districts coming for their normal collection. “This process has been on-going before elections and it is not correct that the fertilizers are diverted”, he said.

Each trip collected from the center is accounted for and can be traced to the farmer in the respective Districts and, therefore, described the allegation by the NDC as unfortunate and calculated only to bring mistrust between the farmers and the staff of the Department.

“We have suspended all activities pending further directives from our Ministry and a guarantee of our security in the performance of our normal duties. Food must not be politicised, our food security is our safety”, he added.

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