Former President John Dramani Mahama has admonished the current government not to buy tractors for farmers in the country, saying that was a major mistake his administration made.
He explained that as part of efforts to boost agriculture, his administration bought tractors for farmers across the country but realized the equipment became dormant because the farmers couldn’t maintain them.
According to Mahama, most of the farmers that benefited from the tractors had no knowledge on how to keep the equipment running.
Speaking at the African Development Bank meeting in India, John Mahama said in order to correct such mistakes, his government instead created the Farmer Service Centres to provide tractor services to farmers.
“In the twilight of my administration in November 2016 I introduced the concept of Farmer Service Centres. And this was based on the experience I had that farmers do not need the tractors and the planters, what they need is the service of those equipment.
In the past, what we’ve done thinking we were modernizing and mechanizing agriculture and I think that was a shot in the dark, it was a mistake and I hope the new government learns from our mistake.”
He said “we found out that the farmers could not maintain the tractors. They don’t have knowledge on how to keep those tractors running and so in two or three years, brand new tractors we provided were all broken down and standing on stones.”
Mr. Mahama explained that the Farmer Service Centres were equipped with mechanized farm equipment and a farmer in need of such service was only to register with the centre and make a request.
“We need to introduce specialization and that’s why we came up with the Farmer Service Centres where the agricultural equipment’ –the planters, ploughs, harrows among others were placed and all the farmer needs to do is register and get the service. And the business of maintaining the equipment is completely that of the farmer centre.”
Mr. Mahama further admonished the current government to make use of the centres in order not to repeat some of the mistakes his administration made.
“And so that was the experience we learnt which we had started to implement. I hope the new government will continue with that project so that farmers will receive service as and when they need it,” he added.
Source: Citifmonline.com
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...indeed this man was dead! a bloody ***barred word***!!! So you do not know that majority of the beneficiary were infact not farmers at all but party people? They only added few real farmers to the list ... ...ahhh!! what a dead johnnnn!
...That a President with all the information and experts advising him would say that he had no fore knowledge that what is important is not simply owning any equipment but the capacity to maintain them, is beyond me. And he makes it worse by talking about it to this audience...? EMBARRASSING!!!
MR FORMER PRESIDENT,YOU BOUGHT MADE IN CHINA TRACTORS,YOU ALSO REFUSED TO TAKE ADVISE FROM GHANAIAN APART FROM FORMER PRESIDENTS.HOW MUCH IS THE COST OF EACH TRACTOR?CORRUPTION LIKE METRO MASS HUANGHAI BUSES THEY BOUGHT.WHEN THE BUSES ARE PARKED IT HELPS THE COMPANY THAN BEING ON ROAD.THE BUSES CONSUMED FUEL,AT THE END OF THE DAY THE COMPANY CAN NOT BREAK EVEN,PARTY FAITFULS,FAMILLY MEMBERS AT THE ESPENSE OF THE COMPANY.
You are not to continue my message dummmmmmmy
continuation...#MyBPisUp Massa.....If He (Mahama) was at least a "living goat" during his tenure in office; he would have received some advice from experts and avoided his mistakes. But what was he..? A D3ad-Go@t!! He will go down into history books as one of the worst presidents...This is not NADAA/NPP or JM/NDC issue....it is about the poor and incompetent choices some of our leaders make, in this case JM. If NADAA does same, I'll be the first person to open fire...American's call it #Patriotism. I don't hold allegiance to any flag, just the flag of future generations...
continuation...#MyBPisUp Massa.....If He (Mahama) was at least a "living goat" during his tenure in office; he would have received some advice from experts and avoided his mistakes. But what was he..? A ***barred word***!! He will go down into history books as one of the worst presidents...This is not NADAA/NPP or JM/NDC issue....it is about the poor and incompetent choices some of our leaders make, in this case JM. If NADAA does same, I'll be the first person to open fire...American's call it #Patriotism. I don't hold allegiance to any flag, just the flag of future generations...
There is everything wrong with the ex-president's statement. I believe you don't earn a salary so don't pay taxes...you wouldn't be asking "what's wrong with the statement". If a country of 20 million people cannot maintain roads...doesn't give him (Mahama) the basis to cause more harm or open fresh wounds. Warren Buffet said "If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging". Common sense was for the ex-president to stop digging further...worsening our plights and focused on making sure a "country of 20 million" people could at least maintain Tractors, Is this rocket science..?? He (Mahama) has succesfully compounded our problems by raising our debt stock to over 100 Billion Cedis before leaving office because of his "f0olixh" mistakes. Who is to pay for that debt..??? Our leaders make avoidable mistakes and the ordinary citizen suffers by paying extra-ordinary taxes....#MyBPisUp Massa.
what was wrong with the statement. A country of about 20 million can't maintain our roads and all our national asset. When are we going to grow as people and remove this unnecessary hatred in us. If this were to come from Akuffo Addo all will give stupiiiiiiid example to support what he is saying. Are we that dddump.
Look at all this. A whole Former President making this kind of statement "the farmers could not maintain the tractors and for that matter the Current President should not buy tractor for the farmers" Mahama de333 your incompetence level dey high ooo. What feasibility studies did you do before buying the tractors for them? What were the constraints to buying the tractors for the farmers? What measure did you put in place to counter those constraints? What education did you give them? Shollow minded President and corrupt leader of all time KEEP MUTE OKAY. YOU ARE INTERNATIONALISE YOUR INCOMPETENCE
If the problem is maintenance of the tractors then I believe that Akufo-Addo should rather intensify agricultural extension activities and provide the needed education to the farmers so that they can maintain the vehicles. Organizing farmers into state owned businesses or cooperatives is also another alternative.