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The Upper West West Regional Minister, Mr. Hafiz Bin Salih, is worried about the inability of detailed security at border posts to make a single arrest of people who introduce fertilizer into smuggling in Burkina Faso.
"It is unfortunate that this issue has caught the country's attention and yet, security officials in these two regions have not been able to arrest a single person trying to smuggle it out. these objects smuggled out of the country.
"Day after day, people constantly send us pictures of vehicles carrying fertilizer out of the country … they are not flown to Burkina Faso, but by these roads we all know that they are borrowing to get in Burkina Faso, "he said.
The regional minister stated that Sissala West District and Sissala East Municipal District, both located in the Upper West Region, were considered to be known areas for the smuggling of agricultural inputs, particularly from Fertilizer for the Plantation program for food and employment.
Speaking in front of a municipal security council (MUSEC) in Tumu, Sissala-East Municipality on Friday, Dr. Bin Salih said that, as part of his efforts to end the threat, he had appealed to the Burkinabé border army to badume the additional responsibility of impounding fertilizer smuggled from Ghana into that country to help combat this chancre.
Also present at the meeting were the Director of Cultures of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the Regional Director of Agriculture of the Upper West, the District Directors of Sissala West and Sissala East Municipal, Deputy Police Commander of the Upper West Region and some staff from the Ghana Immigration Service, Ghana Police Service and Customs Division
He hoped to be able to hire a person and act with her to deter other perpetrators of the act.
It revealed that the state had recently confiscated about 2,000 bags of contraband fertilizer and distributed it to farmers free of charge. He noted that last year alone, the country lost about $ 12 million because of smuggling.
He does not understand why "some villains" sabotage the implementation of the PFJ program, which was introduced to make agricultural inputs, including fertilizers, accessible and affordable to farmers in order to improve agricultural activities in the country. country.
The director of crops of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Mr. Seth Osei Akoto, said that the government had banned some districts of the country, including the district of Sissal West and the district of Sissala East Municipal, to trade fertilizer as part of measures to limit incessant losses. smuggling objects out of the country.
He explained that, although both districts had been banned from marketing fertilizer, arrangements had been made to provide fertilizer to farmers in those areas, where appropriate, and added that last year about 25 % of the 250,000 metric tons of fertilizer was smuggled.
Mr Akoto said he was satisfied with the results of the MUSEC meeting, but called for collective and pragmatic measures to curb the threat.
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