The article was culled from Burning Issues (FOROYAA) Publication

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The Government Is In A Trap Of Its Making

The government had serious difficulties in attracting a private sector
intervention in the purchase of groundnuts. This is clearly acknowledged by
the permanent secretary Department of State for Agriculture in his letter to
the Independent newspaper and copied to all media houses. The relevant
portion reads;
It is note worthy that in the sub-region, all the leading producers of
groundnuts are facing the same reality i.e. declining world market prices
due to low demands, failures of marketing boards (where they exist) and
private operators to generate the requisite crop finance to purchase
outright the total marketable crop produced." In short, the permanent
secretary is acknowledging that neither the private sector nor public sector
crop financing is working in the region. He did not give any diagnosis of
the problem.

The permanent secretary went to indicate that government adopted a price
stabilisation mechanism "for the purchase of groundnuts in both the
1999/2000 and the 2000/2001 groundnut marketing season." According to him
"in the absence of this mechanism, ,farmers would have received the ''real
/market price'' for their produce and this would have been much lower than
the producer price for both years. Suffice to point out that this initiative
alone cost government over D12 million dalasis in the 1999/2000 Trade
Season. The permanent secretary failed to add that at the end of December
2000, the total amount owed by Farato farms, now dimension limited, and
UTP/Turlor amount to 70.5 million. The secretary of state had indicated that
the EU was expected to take care of a certain percentage of the debt. Hence
the price stabilisation mechanism ended up in a real mess.

What are however important are the details presented by the permanent
secretary regarding the purchase of groundnuts in No Kunda, Farafenni and
Dippa Kunda, it reads;
1. No Kunda - the total purchased: 382,442 Metric tons, valued at 994,
351.81, total amount paid to farmers equals to D952,650.00 leaving an
outstanding balance of D41, 70.80.
1. Farafenni - total purchased: 117.721 metric tons, valued at D306,114.60,
total amount disbursed to secco - D310, 000.00 leaving a positive cash
balance of D3, 945.00.
3. Dippa Kunda - (it is the nearest secco to Kataba) 416,552 metric tons,
valued at D1,083,035.20, total; amount paid to farmers D973, 380.00, leaving
an outstanding balance of D106,655.00.

What the figures reveal is that there is credit buying. This is what the
Secretary of State for agriculture refused to acknowledge. All the confusion
could have been avoided if the Department of State for Agriculture, the
Federation of Co-operative Societies made it their duty to give regular
posting of the purchases and outstanding balances and acknowledge that there
is credit buying. To promise that there would be no credit buying and there
was no credit buying when every one knows that there was credit buying
constituted an insult to people's intelligence. As the old saying goes
'speak the truth and speak it ever and cause it what it will; that he who
hides the wrong he did does the wrong thing still. Here the nursery rhyme is
instructive to those who guide the affairs of the nation.

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