The General Agriculture Workers Union (GAWU) has criticized government’s second phase of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) programme.
According to the General Secretary of the Union, Edward Kareweh, government’s quest to increase jobs within the agricultural sector is unrealistic as the first phase of the programme launched in 2017 which promised more than 750,000 jobs was not sustainable.
“Government claimed that they came out with 750,000 jobs and every year they increase the number and also increase the number of crops that were supported which was maize, rice, soya bean, tomato and so on. But getting later, we even asked the question where were the jobs? They could not tell us where the jobs were,” he said on Accra-based Citi TV.
He added that the jobs that government introduced in the first phase of the programme were informal and did not make any statutory deductions of salaries including the payment of Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) contributions and income tax.
“We should not celebrate policies and their intentions. We should celebrate policies and their outcomes. So, it is when the outcomes come that we need to celebrate. We should not celebrate an intention of a policy because we have been bitten not only once, twice but for many years”, he said.
Mr. Kareweh expressed disappointment that the ‘One Village, One Dam’ policy which seeks to improve the accessibility of water for farmers has been a total failure.
He suggested that government finds an alternative irrigation system that will reduce the dependency on rain to grow crops.
“The Pwalugu multi-purpose dam which came with a lot of pagentry and sod-cutting; today, what is the state of that particular project. Who is telling us what? Contractors have parked away. Work has stopped. No one is doing anything,” he added.
On Monday, 28th August 2023, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, launched Phase Two of Government’s flagship programme on agriculture, “Planting for Food and Jobs,” at the University for Development Studies, in Tamale.
The second phase of government’s flagship agric programme seeks to provide jobs to more than 1.2 million farmers.
An annual average of 210,000 new farm-related jobs which exclude other jobs along the agricultural value chains estimated at an annual average of 420,000 will be created in the second phase of the programme.
Government first module of the PFJ programme was launched on April 19, 2017 with aims to promote food security and immediate availability of selected crops on the market and also provide jobs.
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