The Ranking Member on Parliament’s Food, Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs Committee, Dr Isaac Yaw Opoku, has urged the government to conduct a comprehensive review of the first phase of the Nkoko Nkitinkiti programme before proceeding with its second phase.
According to him, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture must take seriously the concerns raised by poultry farmers and other stakeholders and address the implementation challenges that emerged during the initial rollout of the programme.
Dr Opoku made the call while reacting to concerns raised by the President of the Poultry Farmers Association of Ghana, George Dassah, who questioned aspects of the programme’s implementation and warned that it may fail to achieve its intended objectives if key problems are not addressed.
Speaking in an interview on Joy FM’s Top Story, Dr Opoku said he agreed with the concerns raised by poultry farmers and believed the ministry should suspend the distribution of birds to Members of Parliament under the Nkoko Nkitinkiti initiative until the first phase has been thoroughly assessed.
“I think, yes, I would support what the poultry farmers’ president said. I stated in my earlier submission that the minister should take our advice on board, conduct a comprehensive review of the first phase, and address the challenges identified before rolling out the second phase,” he said.
The Nkoko Nkitinkiti programme forms part of the government’s efforts to boost local poultry production and reduce the country’s dependence on imported chicken. Under the initiative, birds are distributed to households and farmers to support local poultry production and encourage reinvestment in the sector.
However, the programme has recently come under scrutiny, with poultry farmers citing weak market linkages, inadequate beneficiary orientation and poor implementation as major obstacles.
Dr Opoku said evidence from some constituencies suggests the programme may not be delivering the expected results.
“If you want to conduct any assessment, I will urge the minister to take my constituency, for example. In fact, the programme is virtually non-existent in my constituency,” he said.
He further claimed that in some cases, beneficiaries received as few as two birds, raising questions about the scale and impact of the intervention.
“We also received two birds, and some of them did not survive. So, I will tell you the success rate is very low,” he said.
Although his remarks highlighted challenges with the distribution and survival of the birds under the programme, Dr Opoku maintained that the government should not proceed with the next phase until it has taken stock of the lessons from the first.
He described the review as necessary to determine what worked, what failed and what adjustments are needed to improve outcomes in subsequent phases.
“My humble plea is that they should conduct a comprehensive review and address the challenges we faced in the first phase before rolling out the second phase,” he said.
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