The Minority group in Parliament is demanding immediate reversal of the government decision to deploy military personnel to enforce ban on exportation of grains describing it as a ploy to intimidate voters in boarder communities.
Minister for defence Dominic Nitiwul in a joint address with the minister for food and agriculture Dr. Bryan Acheampong announced soldiers will be deployed to enforce the ban occasioned by the drought in the Northern parts of the country.
Addressing the media, minority spokesperson on Defence and Interior James Agalga condemned the decision arguing it’s an attempt to intimidate voters in the strongholds of the NDC.
The Builsa North MP questioned why Customs and immigration personnel have not been put in charge of the enforcement like has always been the case. Agalga further called for broader engagements in enforcement of the ban
Below is the full statement released by the minority in Parliament
MINORITY IN PARLIAMENT REACTS TO THE GOVERNMENT’S DECISION TO DEPLOY THE MILITARY TO ENFORCE THE BAN ON THE EXPORT OF GRAINS AS UNCALLED-FOR AND SUSPICIOUS
The Minority in Parliament condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the decision by the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia-led government to deploy the military to border towns across the country to supposedly enforce the government’s ban on the exportation of grain from the country in the wake of the reported drought-induced crop failures in the northern part of the country.
The Minority takes note of the rollout of measures by the government to address the potentially devastating impact of the dry spell on food security in our country, the deployment of the military to our borders to ostensibly perform the task of the enforcement of a ban on the exportation of grain raises several questions and suspicions.
First, neither the Minister for Food and Agriculture nor the Defence Minister who announced the ban and deployment of the military adduced any evidence to establish the inability of our immigration and customs services to enforce the prohibition in question to warrant the military’s involvement.
The immigration service is statutorily empowered to manage and patrol the country’s borders as a first line of defense.
The customs service, on the other hand, compliments the immigration service in the exercise of its preventive functions along our borders. Consequently, any attempt to deploy the military when there is no evidence to show that the immigration and customs services will be overwhelmed in the enforcement of the ban on the exportation of grain heightens our suspicions.
Indeed, the government should be mindful of the cost of military deployment along the borders because it could be more than the value of grains they wish to protect within the country.
The Minority recalls that in the run-up to the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections, the Akufo-Addo/ Bawumia government heavily deployed the country’s military, particularly in the Volta and Oti regions, as part of a carefully orchestrated strategy that scared eligible voters from exercising their franchise.
The pretext for the massive deployment was the alleged secessionist threat posed by what has now been established as phantom groups. Interestingly, once the elections were over, the secessionist threat suddenly evaporated.
Subsequently, the Akuffo Addo-Bawumia government ordered the military to return to barracks.
Such is the political chicanery of the government we are dealing with, so Ghanaians have reason to take the recent announcement with a pinch of salt.
The Minister for Agriculture, Hon Bryan Acheampong, who made the border closure announcement, is the very person who has declared time and again to do everything to wreck the chances of the NDC to win the December 7, 2024 election.
His reckless and incendiary statements have attracted widespread condemnation and exposed him as the arrowhead of the NPP gang working to undermine free and fair elections and thus destabilize our dear country.
Hon. Bryan Acheampong will stop at nothing to execute the dastardly plot hatched by the government, which he brazenly asserts.
He lacks the moral uprightness and credibility required in the situation. We urge the development partners who may wish to support Ghana to join us in insisting on a credible task force primarily made up of experts to oversee the drawing up and execution of plans to alleviate the situation.
Otherwise, as usual, the government and its henchmen will line their pockets while Ghanaians go hungry.
The Minority wishes to caution the Akufo-Addo/ Bawumia- led government to desist from deploying our revered military in a manner that is not consistent with its mandate and use the institution as a force to subvert the democratic right of Ghanaians to vote devoid of an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.
The concern of the Minority goes beyond the suspicious military deployment along the country’s borders. In the 2020 election year, this same Akufo Addo-Bawumia government used the COVID-19 funding to further their political schemes.
They ended up siphoning millions of cedis into the pockets of NPP apparatchiks and enrichment of family and friends.
The Minority will support genuine efforts to alleviate the reported food crisis, which has badly exposed the government’s Planting for Food and One District One Dam programs as abject failures. However, the Minority serves notice that we will insist on clear guidelines and strict accountability in using emergency funding that may be approved to tackle the reported emergency.
Meanwhile, the Minority is concerned about the reported lack of consultation with neighboring countries before the ban, as disclosed a few days ago by Ghana’s Ambassador to Burkina Faso, Boniface Agambilla.
In making the decision, did the government consider the large quantities of farm produce that come into the country from Burkina Faso, Togo, and Cote d’Ivoire and the possibility of reprisals? Would that not instead increase the price of food items in Ghana? Knowing the playbook of the NPP convinces us that the knee-jerk measures were primarily motivated by the opportunity as they see it for chop-chop a la COVID-19 and using the food situation as a pretext to deploy the military in areas known as NDC strongholds to intimate and suppress voters ahead of the December 7 elections.
It is perhaps instructive to note that in 1983, when the country faced arguably the worst famine in the nation’s history, the then-PNDC government did not shut down the borders.
Recently, when neighboring Nigeria became saddled with drought-induced crop failures that could create food shortages similar to our situation, that country’s President, Tinubu, tasked the Nigeria Customs Service and not the military to curtail food exports.
Finally, at this time, we expect the government to engage stakeholders and consult broadly. Whatever it is, the government should leave the military out of its political games.
Source: www.kumasimail.com
