Implement policies to boost agric sector – Ken Ashigbey

The Managing Director of Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), Mr Kenneth Ashigbey has called for the implementation of policies to boost the Agric sector of the economy.

According to him, if five successive governments would focus on promoting the sector, the challenges confronting it will be a thing of the past.

“For an industry that employs about 50 per cent of our people, if every government for the next five governments will focus on how to transform that, you will find out that it will have a knock-on effect on other things that we do”, he said.

Mr Ashigbey made the call on Joy FM, ahead of the Graphic Business / Stanbic Bank Breakfast Meeting to be held at the Labadi Beach Hotel in Accra Tuesday, on the theme, "Securing the Economy with Agriculture".

According to the MD of Graphic, the event aims at impacting policy formulation in the country, adding that organisers will be looking for concrete things that will be used to hold policy makers accountable.

“If you see the challenges that are facing some of our people, a little bit of change in policy, change in direction, change in focus, we can move our people from the levels they are currently, to be able to make the necessary changes that we want to do”.

“It is able, the whole chain from marketing, from technology point of view, it holds such prospects for our country and it is important that we really push this 3.3 per cent growth that we have been singing for some years now to be able to grow in quantum leaps in agriculture. Then you find out that when you talk about growth in Ghana, this will be growth that will be affecting Ghanaians themselves not, growth that is led by a lot of this oil and things that really do not drive it”, he said

The event

The meeting on the theme "Securing the Economy with Agriculture", is to shape a broad discussion of how to revive the ailing sector, which was once one of the highest contributors to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP)”, (and) will bring together think tanks in the Agric industry to deliberate on issues affecting the sector.

Some of the speakers of tomorrow’s event will be the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto; a former flagbearer of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), Dr Abu Sakara; a former Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Dr Ahmed Alhassan Yakubu, and the General Secretary of the General Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU), Mr Edward Kareweh.

Others to attend the meeting are officials from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, sector associations such as GAWU, the Peasant Farmers Association, the Ghana Trade and Livelihoods Coalition, as well as some experts in the sector.

Reinforcing the call of Mr Ashigbey, the Marketing Manager of Stanbic Bank, Mr Mawuko Afadzinu said Ghanaians must reflect and come to an agreement on what is required to move the Agricultural industry forward.